Re: [fielding@apache.org: Review of proposed Apache License, version 2.0]
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 11:36:10AM -0500, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
>> If the lawsuit filed against you has *no* merit, that's true. But in
>> practice, given the current broken state of the American patent law
>> system, it's much, much cheaper to countersue and work out a quick
>> settlement -- even if both patents on both sides are bullshit -- than
>> to slog through the courts.
>
>> This isn't nice, it isn't good, it isn't right -- but it isn't
>> Debian's fight, or Apache's, and this isn't the right way to solve it.
>
> But it is. This is a real problem.
>
> Let's say I own a manufacturing company and I am looking for a solution to
> deploy online shopping services -- this is going to be critical to my
> business in the future, and a webserver will be a critical part of it. As a
> manufacturer, I own patents on various manufacturing processes that let me
> maintain a chance of competing against much larger companies.
>
> Now, let's say that somebody that contributed to Apache (with this type of
> patent grant) decides to violate my patent on mouse trap assembly. I am now
> stuck between a rock and a hard place: I can either see my product illegally
> copied by someone else, or defend my patent and see my e-commerce suite come
> crashing down. Either way, I'm screwed.
Exatly: that's what I've been saying: the clause of the candidate
Apache license seeking to make software patents unusable is not Free,
and not even a good idea.
The "this" in my last sentence was referring to that clause.
> I don't see how you, or anyone else, can possibly claim that this is
> acceptable even for proprietary software, much less Free Software. It
> directly violates DFSG's "no discrimination" clause, in that people that
> exercise their legal rights are discriminated against.
>
> Now, s/mouse trap/software/ and you have exactly the situation comptemplated
> by the license proposal.
We appear to be in violent agreement.
> I agree that software should not be patentable at all. But I disagree that
> people should be prevented from exercising the same rights as everyone else
> just because they run Apache.
>
> If the proposed Apache license becomes DFSG-free, people will no longer be
> able to trust that Debian is a Free operating system. They will now have to
> review every legal action taken against any company against all software
> they use from Debian (which could be in the thousands) to see if this will
> terminate some rights somewhere. That is ludicrous.
-Brian
--
Brian T. Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
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