On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 05:50:12PM -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes: > > The reality is that we do *not* require authors to extend us a license to > > patents as part of their software license in order to consider it free. We > > merely opt not to distribute software that's covered by patents that are > > actively being enforced. The current patent regime is sufficiently broken, > > and so much inanely trivial activity is covered by patents, that *asking* > > people for patent licenses really is a slippery slope that we don't want to > > start down. > I think there are more points on this spectrum than you imply. For > example, we currently treat as free those who distribute software > covered by patents but ignore them -- their own patents or those of > others. We do *not* treat as free software covered by actively > enforced patents, those that are not ignored. Offering to license one's patents != enforcing one's patents. I have no problems with any clause that terminates a patent license; I only have problems with people who are actively enforcing their patents against people who don't have a license. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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