Re: Cisco EIGRP patent licence and the GPLv2 licence

[Walter Landry <wlandry@caltech.edu>]

Paul Jakma <paul@jakma.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Jul 2017, Walter Landry wrote:
>> With that said, the usual approach that Debian follows is that if the
>> patent is not being actively enforced, Debian does not worry about
>> them.  Otherwise, Debian would not be able to ship anything.  Since
>> you claim later
> 
> It's hard to know. Cisco do have a history of initiating patent
> enforcement actions though. E.g.:
> 
>   https://blogs.cisco.com/news/protecting-innovation-itc-945-initial-determination
> 
> How much that would concern one would depend on one's situation.
> 
> Personally, I don't have an issue with that style of licence cause it
> only limits those who want to sue over patents. Which seems fine to
> me.

IBM also has a history of suing everyone.  If they are not suing over
a particular patent, then it is not all that productive to worry about
it.

<snip>
> (On whether concerns are founded: The brief informal legal advice I've
> had seemed to suggest maybe - your reply above seems to too; what I
> can't get clarity on is that issue of the reasonable degree of
> caution, and the appropriate balance between different interests).

I do not think I can give you any more clarity.  Almost every
non-trivial piece of software infringes patents, so objecting to the
GPL because of an unenforced patent license would make almost all GPL
software undistributable.  I do not know how much mischief could be
caused by bad actors.  I can not imagine very much, but I might not be
very imaginative ;)

Cheers,
Walter Landry