Re: IBM Public License (again)
On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 10:07:59AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> "We insist that licenses be perpetual unless terminated for
> non-compliance" Branden Robinson during the LaTeX discussions
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/08/msg00108.html -- Now, the
> IBM patent licence terminates if you don't comply with conditions on
> other software. Why is that not contaminating?
That's an example of terminating for non-compliance. An example of
termination without non-compliance would be where a license is terminated
after five years.
Branden's statement isn't particularly restrictive.
> I don't think that accepting non-free patent licenses is a useful way
> to defend free software.
Then why would suing IBM over patent license violations matter for
free software?
> > Legalistic licensors covering all their bases, or companies that hold
> > so many patents that it would be difficult to search them all to
> > determine what to license.
>
> It seems unfair to put the burden of discovering what has been
> licensed on the distributors and users. Does anyone know how a court
> would handle this?
In the U.S., it's roughly the case that the defendant in patent litigation
is presumed guilty until proven innocent.
--
Raul
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