MJ Ray wrote: > On 2004-09-13 03:39:39 +0100 Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote: >> "This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer >> exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date >> You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against >> Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a >> patent." >> >> The new clause may still not satisfy everyone, but it's much better: it >> no longer forbids all patent action against Licensor; in fact, it no >> longer makes a special case of the Licensor at all. > > It is a great step forwards: it no longer contaminates other software. > Sadly, as written, it still seems to terminate a copyright licence as a > consequence of patent-based action, even in self-defence. Until I'm > shown harder facts about copyright misuse and trademark misuse in each > law this licence is used in, I'm still uncomfortable with this idea. Does that really matter, if the condition for termination is acceptable? If the patent license is terminated, the only reason to care whether the copyright license terminates as well is if you intend to ignore the lack of a patent license. (Granted, Debian tends to do that in many cases. :) ) Furthermore, if you *sue claiming that the work infringes your patent*, I see absolutely no reason why you should have any rights to the work, since you are trying to eliminate the rights of others to the work. I can understand the objection to terminating the license over unrelated lawsuits, but not the objection to termination when you actually sue over the software in question. The alternative would be that *no one except you* would have rights to the software, which means you have now essentially made it your own proprietary software. > There also appears to be a choice of venue, which I still consider a > arbitrary charge option on the licensee. It is balanced by a fees > clause, but the side with deeper pockets still has the advantage, AFAICT. This, on the other hand, I would tend to agree with. - Josh Triplett
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