John Hasler writes: > Michael Poole writes: > > Company B's "defensive" claims also affect all other users of the > > original software -- now that they attempt to enforce their patent > > rights, no other users can assume themselves to be safe. > > Why do you assume that company B's claims must have to do with the original > software, or even with software at all?
Martin's original mail had the qualifier "connected to the licensed work" in one place and not the other; my mail was addressed case where I think there is significant disagreement on -legal: the case when that kind of qualifier is used. I agree with Andrew (and, from what I can tell, most of -legal) that license termination for a patent lawsuit unrelated to the licensed software is non-free. I cannot find offhand any license that is quite so broad. I suspect -- but have no strong opinion yet -- that it is also non-free if the termination is limited to software patents against the software's author(s). Some licenses that do that are the Apple Public Source License and IBM Public License. A more generally productive (and acceptable) way to fix that problem is to lobby against software patents. Michael Poole
