Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:27:11AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> Before Debian considers software free, we require proper licenses for
> actively enforced patents; any claim of infringement would make the
> software non-DFSG, even before a lawsuit is resolved.
This isn't established.
If Microsoft started patent infringement suits against gcc, which it
knew it would lose but started anyway for, say, weird PR reasons, we
wouldn't consider gcc non-free. We'd only do that if they actually
won the suit, and then only extend it to other software that would
infringe the same patent if they actually won it on the grounds of the
patent (eg. not in the odd case of the FSF throwing a no-contest, which
wouldn't actually confirm the patent, I assume).
We don't have much prior practice on this, but I don't think we'd be
doing anyone any good to pull out large chunks of the archive because
a company started a bogus patent campaign against major free software
projects.
--
Glenn Maynard
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