Re: zstd: PATENTS application to copyright
Jeff Epler <jepler@unpythonic.net> writes:
> Apparently,
> https://github.com/facebook/zstd
> https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/LICENSE
> https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/PATENTS
Thank you for this, and for the complete text of the conditions. It
allows discussion to be more easily read in the archives of this forum.
> Contents of .../LICENSE of this date:
> BSD License
>
> For Zstandard software
> […]
That is a standard 3-clauses BSD license. It grants all the
DFSG-required freedoms to every recipient.
> Copyright (c) 2016-present, Facebook, Inc. All rights reserved.
The “All rights reserved” is legal twaddle AFAICT, because it is then
immediately contradicted by *granting* some rights to the recipient.
The “Copyright (c) 2016-present” is an overreach. Copyright inheres when
a work is published – fixed in a medium of expression – not forever into
the future, whenever the “present” that the document is being read.
Neither of those is a DFSG problem, I believe. They do exhibit a
troubling disregard for the proper limits to copyright.
> Contents of .../PATENTS of this date:
> Additional Grant of Patent Rights Version 2
>
> "Software" means the Zstandard software distributed by Facebook, Inc.
>
> Facebook, Inc. ("Facebook") hereby grants to each recipient of the Software
> ("you") a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable
> (subject to the termination provision below) license under any Necessary
> Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise
> transfer the Software.
I'm less familiar with the effects of wording in patent law. This has
the appearance of granting limited license to exercise patents held by
Facebook.
> The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and
> without notice, if you […]
What is “hereunder” intended to mean? No license is granted following
that text; the only license granted in this document is *above* (prior
to) this text.
Does it mean “the license granted below”? If so, it appears to be null,
because there is no such license.
Does it mean “the license granted in this document”? If so, this clause
is attempting to punish patent attacks with revocation of the patent
license granted above.
This clause is activated when the recipient asserts a proprietary idea
patent over some other party's use of that idea.
I am quite sure the act of asserting software idea patents is not a
freedom anyone is guaranteed in free software; indeed, it is violently
contrary to software freedom.
So, because it does not appear to limit any DFSG freedom, this clause
appears to me to be no problem for the DFSG.
--
\ “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he |
`\ did, he would cease to be an artist.” —Oscar Wilde, _The Decay |
_o__) of Lying_, 1889 |
Ben Finney
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