Re: Patent clauses in licenses
Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 10:05:29AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> The GPL does much the same. If someone distributes GPLed software
>> without complying with section 3 (which gives you various ways in which
>> you have to make source code available to the recipient), then they lose
>> the right to use that GPLed software. We have various licenses that
>> terminate if you do something "wrong" - we've just come to the
>> conclusion that it's acceptable that people not be allowed to do that
>> thing.
>
> That merely reduces to "some licenses exist which are free and some
> exist which are not". This is trivially satisfied by the existence of
> one work under the MIT license (which is free), and one under the MS
> EULA (which is not) - and yes, we've just come to the conclusion that
> one is acceptable and the other not.
The implication of the post I replied to was that any license that
allows the removal of some set of the rights it grants should be
non-free. The GPL is an obvious counter-example, since it allows you to
lose all rights associated with it.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.project@srcf.ucam.org
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