Re: Patent clauses in licenses
John Hasler writes:
> Michael Poole writes:
> > Company B's "defensive" claims also affect all other users of the
> > original software -- now that they attempt to enforce their patent
> > rights, no other users can assume themselves to be safe.
>
> Why do you assume that company B's claims must have to do with the original
> software, or even with software at all?
Martin's original mail had the qualifier "connected to the licensed
work" in one place and not the other; my mail was addressed case where
I think there is significant disagreement on -legal: the case when
that kind of qualifier is used.
I agree with Andrew (and, from what I can tell, most of -legal) that
license termination for a patent lawsuit unrelated to the licensed
software is non-free. I cannot find offhand any license that is quite
so broad.
I suspect -- but have no strong opinion yet -- that it is also
non-free if the termination is limited to software patents against the
software's author(s). Some licenses that do that are the Apple Public
Source License and IBM Public License. A more generally productive
(and acceptable) way to fix that problem is to lobby against software
patents.
Michael Poole
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