On 2003-11-15 04:14:44 +0000 Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> wrote:
It only revokes the patent license, not the whole license. Since Debian, to a large extent, only concerns itself with patents that are being enforced, it was considered fine [1]. There was even a comment praising the patent stuff [2]. Basically, if there was a patent being enforced then Debian might start worrying about these clauses.
I think I can buy this. We evaluate the licence as if it contains no patent grants and see if that minimal state still meets the DFSG. The licence must only revoke the non-essential grants in this case and not the entire licence.
Will discovery of any essential patents without a royalty- and condition-free grant covering the software cause it to be moved to non-free? I'm trying to grok the last paragraph of Henning Makholm's comments in your first reference at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/1999/debian-legal-199906/msg00218.html
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