Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > >> Terminating licenses (copyright, patent, trademark, dog-humping, or >> whatever else might interfere with distribution/modification/use) for >> any reason other than non-compliance is a bit of legal insanity to get >> contract-like provisions into a license. These provisions have to be >> considered like any other restriction (invert the sense of the >> conditional to get the restriction). > > In this case, however, I would make the case that by suing claiming that the > Work is infringing a patent, the person suing is not complying with the > spirit of the license. The person suing is certainly attempting to claim > that the license is not really valid for anyone *else*, and if it's not > valid for anyone else, why should it be valid for the lawsuit initiator?
Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. >> Anything that requires a contract-like construct, rather than a simple >> license, is probably non-free. > "Probably" is a key word here. I understand your position though; it has > sense to it too. > > I do think this sort of clause is unnecessary in a copyleft license with > explicit patent grants, like the OSL, because that already prevents the > "patent holder steals the work" scenario. Only if the patent holder remains the copyright holder. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]