On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:11:22PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > 11.1 Term and Termination. The term of this License is perpetual unless > terminated as provided below. This License and the rights granted hereunder > will > terminate:
> (c) automatically without notice from Licensor if You, at any time during the > term of this License, commence an action for patent infringement against > Licensor (including by cross-claim or counter claim in a lawsuit); I don't know about the other patent conditions, but I don't think this is free. It seems to say "even if we sue you for patent violation, you can't countersuit with your own". (As I understand it, that's a very typical patent defense in the real world: "if you nuke me, I nuke you back".) While I can sympathise with wanting to use free software as a patent defense (but don't yet have a strong opinion on it either way), this seems to go beyond that: attempting to disarm the other guys' defenses, not just their weapons, setting them up for offensive patent suits. Of course, IANAL, so I could be reading this clause completely incorrectly. -- Glenn Maynard
