Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 06:02:12AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
>> Finally, it is totally unacceptable to tie this into a software
>> copyright license, such that accepting the license affects the status
>> of your own patents. That's non-free however you look at it.
>
> Your own patents are only affected if you contribute code that uses
> them. If I distribute modifications to a GPL work, the status of my own
> copyright is affected, too.
That first sentence is not true. Specifically, the candidate Apache
license says:
5. Reciprocity. If You institute patent litigation against a
Contributor with respect to a patent applicable to software
(including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then any
patent licenses granted by that Contributor to You under this
License shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
[snipped]
If I use Apache, and have a significant cost to switch my operations
away from Apache, then I dare not sue any Apache contributor who
infringes on my patents: if I do so, I lose my licenses to use Apache.
If there were a list of relevant patents, this might be at least a
*little* more reasonable. But given that, for example, IBM has
contributed to Apache, I cannot sue IBM for patent infringement
without losing my license to use Apache.
-Brian
--
Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
