Re: Patent clauses in licenses

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

MJ Ray writes:

> On 2004-09-14 12:25:41 +0100 Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > As a non-strictly related point, both the FSF and the OSI appear to
> > consider clauses of this nature free. [...]
> 
> On what do you base this opinion?

Both groups list significant numbers licenses as free that terminate
on patent litigation:

* The Academic Free License (version 1.1 for the FSF, several newer
  versions for the OSI).

* The Open Software License (version 1.0 for the FSF, and obviously
  all versions for the OSI).

* The Apache Software License, version 2.0 (for both).

* The IBM Public License, version 1.0 (and the similar-looking Common
  Public License, version 1.0).

* The Mozilla Public License, version 1.1 (and its related licenses).

* The Apple Public Source License, version 2.0 (for both).

>From the FSF's commentary on the Academic Free License at
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html:

    Another incompatibility comes from its "Mutual termination for
    Patent Action" clause. Putting aside the difficult question of
    whether this sort of clause is a good idea or a bad one, it is
    incompatible with the GPL.

And on Apache Software License 2.0:

    We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad
    idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.

Michael Poole