Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:55:28PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some
> > software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit
> > claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits
> The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the *Original
> Work* consitutes patent infringment.
I don't think this is well-defined or well-understood just yet.
Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work
and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding.
Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other
things, GIF decoding.
Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent.
Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs?
I think the answer to both is yes.
This is analogous to what happens if you violate the GPL and lose your
license to a forked project: you lose your license to the original
project, too, since you violated that as well. (Or at least, that's
what I think happens.) Similarly, if you violate the original work,
you can no longer use any forks, either. If these things didn't happen,
the GPL would be a lot weaker, and probably have loopholes.
(It might be that your "license" to the code shared in both projects
is one and the same, but I don't know.)
I think that for these defense clauses to be remotely useful, this must
happen. Otherwise, patent holders can go after every little fork of a
work, without any worry of losing his license to the "real" version.
--
Glenn Maynard
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