Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 02:59:20PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software.
Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution
of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software.
> It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a
> free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting
> lawsuits.
It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always
beneficial to free software. I could easily give an example where
they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project
was furthered by dropping them. (I'm not interested in debating whether
this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the
sake of avoiding pointless tangents.)
(I doubt that any copyright-enforced requirement made in the interests
of benefitting free software will result, in every single case, in
being beneficial and not detrimental. There are almost always exceptions.)
> In short, all the usual things that distinguish valid applications of
> DFSG#5/#6 from invalid ones (even if they are fiendishly difficult to
> understand).
I believe, at least in principle, patent defense clauses readily pass
DFSG#5/#6. (I'm not yet sure they can be implemented without introducing
possibility for abuse, but that's a separate issue.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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