On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 03:27:06AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> > > > I actually don't think the GPL Preamble is entirely legally irrelevant; it > > would presumably color the legal interpretation of the GPL if a question of > > interpretation came up. > > Hm, what about "a non-legal piece of text", then? The word you are seeking is "normative". > > I would be quite comfortable allowing patent "retaliation" restrictions, but > > only if they were very carefully tailored. Specifically, license rights > > must terminate only if the work is alleged to constitute patent > > infringement (no action based on unrelated causes), and they must terminate > > only for the person who alleged that it did (no harming third parties). > > The trouble with patents - in this context - is that we don't really > have any solid consensus to be codified. > > I'm fairly certain, however, that the *current* consensus is that a > free license cannot retailiate against patent attacks by revoking > *copyright* licenses. I'm not quite energetic enough tonight to try to > track down list referneces, but can anyone remember a case where this > was *not* the conclusion? Frankly, I think the whole notion of rolling patent and copyright licenses into a single document is monumentally stupid and fraught with trouble. If you need to write a patent license, write a *distinct* license. That aside, we've never actually special-cased copyright before in our phrasing or application of the DFSG, and I don't think we should do this for patents. I recommend the following: Phrase the proposed restriction in a way that is not specific to patents. Then construct a scenario where you apply it to copyright. Is it still an acceptable restriction? -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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