Re: IBM Public License (again)
On 2004-05-14 10:50:26 +0100 Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> wrote:
On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 09:33:31AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
It imposes restrictions on what actions you can take over other
software.
That might make it incompatible with the GPL, but this is a typical
characteristic of many licenses -- including DFSG licenses.
Can you show me another DSFG-free licence that terminates depending on
action taken not involving the covered work?
But the question is: how do these restrictions contaminate other
software?
They limit the licensing of other works, maybe produced by the user,
which may or may not be on the same media.
[Contaminate other software means that just being on the same media is
a problem.]
Problems with being on the same media is an *example* of contaminating
other software, not the complete meaning of the term! That one even
says "For example" in the DFSG explanations! It is not required that
software on the same media is contaminated.
If there were any valid patent licenses covering this software, under
BSD you'd be in trouble for patent violation.
Yes, you would.
If there are any invalid patent licenses covering this software, these
clauses give you protection from litigation based on those licenses.
No, they do not, because they can be terminated by actions unrelated
to the covered work.
If there are no patent licenses, this is indistinguishable from BSD's
treatment of those licenses.
I think I agree with that. The question is, are we accepting a
non-free patent licence, or is the incorporated patent licence
irrelevant?
If someone offered us a non-free patent licence for unspecified
patents infringed by a BSD-3-clause-style-licensed piece of software,
what would we do? I would like to obtain a list of patents involved
and refuse the non-free patent licence.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
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