Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a > minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate > recourse to the courts to enforce their intellectual capital grants. > And a license which compels them to surrender that recourse is no more > free than a license which compels them to surrender any other recourse > to the courts.
OK. Suppose there exists a patent on a mathematical algorithm (call it "RSA"). Suppose that RSA is implemented by Joe in the program joe-rsa, and he licenses his copyright under a free software license. Suppose then that the RSA patent holders hold a legitimate patent (not freely licensed). Then joe-rsa was never free, regardless of what license Joe issued it under, so the license contents are irrelevant. Suppose instead that the RSA patent holders hold a legitimate patent, freely licensed. Then Joe will have permission to implement RSA (this is pretty much required for a free patent license), so the RSA patent holders will not sue. (Wait. I thought of a case: suppose the patent license requires a statement of credit -- and that's considered free -- and joe-rsa doesn't contain the credit statement. Then the RSA patent holders would sue to enforce their free patent license, and lose their free copyright license.... hmm, that could actually be a problem). Suppose instead that the RSA patent holders hold only illegitimate patents. Then the patent-retaliation clause is very clearly in the best interests of free software, and the license is Free. In other words, the patent-retaliation clause only imposes a burden in the cases where (a) the work is already non-free for other reasons or (b) the people being burdened are being abusive (Barring the case I just thought of above, which might be an actual problem.) Accordingly, it is acceptable in a free license, no? -- This space intentionally left blank.