Re: [Olga.Caprotti@risc.uni-linz.ac.at: Research Institute for Applications of Computer Algebra: Licenses]

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 01:04:20PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote:
> > I'm not actually arguing that these patent agreements are good things.
> > However, the cat is out of the bag, everyone accepts these licenses as
> > free (even the FSF), and I don't think objecting to similar conditions
> > is going to do any good.
> 
> I believe you, but can you provide a cite for this, please?

Well, the Opensource people have approved the IBM public license

  http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html

and the GNU people think that it's free

  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses

There was also the original discussion about it on this list in May
1999.  No complaints about freeness, and one laudatory comment about
the patent bit.  There were two discussions in Jun 1999, and they
discussed (especially the second thread) the patent bits and concluded
it was free.

There was also a discussion in July 1999, but that focused on GPL
compatibility (it isn't).

As for the RIACA license, I don't know any places that have looked
into it before.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu