Re: Are golang-github-facebookgo-* DFSG compliant?

[Walter Landry <wlandry@caltech.edu>]

Jeff Epler <jepler@unpythonic.net> wrote:
> The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice,
> if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate
> directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent
> Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate
> affiliates, (ii) against any party if such Patent Assertion arises in whole or
> in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of
> its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, or (iii) against any party relating
> to the Software.

Interesting.  If any S&P 5000 company sues Facebook, then anyone with
retirement in a US equities fund will lose access to the patent.  I
understand the reasoning behind the clause, but that does cover a lot
of people.

<snip>

> ISTM that since "patent" contains is an "additional grant" (i.e., the plain
> language implies that it in no way restricts the rights granted in "license"),
> it can be ignored for the purposes of analyzing whether the package's license
> is DFSG-free.

I think Debian's usual course of action is to only worry about
actively enforced patents.  If Facebook is not actually going around
filing suits based on these patents, then Debian usually does not care
about patent issues.

So I agree.

Cheers,
Walter Landry