On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 02:08:29PM -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > There is a somewhat recursive, but self-consistent, way to deal with > this. We don't require explicit patent licenses when it appears the > patents aren't being enforced. Presence of these clauses is excellent > evidence that the patents are being enforced -- or at least no longer > *not* being enforced.
Most of the time it's just evidence that some idiot manager has selected the longest license they could find, which happened to be written by a lawyer with an overactive imagination. There probably *aren't* any relevant patents in most cases. If the copyright holder admits to actually having patents, *then* we might have a problem. Casewise basis for this, as always. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
