My legal rights to software on the computer in front of me may be restricted by many things. A short and incomplete list includes copyright law, patents, contracts, who owns the computer and my employment status. Any and all of these can impact whether I actually enjoy the freedoms that the OSD describes. I may be unaware of or misinformed about any or all these potential encumbrances.
When we talk about whether a software license is OSD compliant, we are only addressing the question of whether this license restricts software under copyright law in a way that violates the OSD. In principle it is generally impossible to decide whether I *actually* have the rights described by the OSD to the software in front of me. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.) On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 3:41 PM, Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com> wrote: > > In light of the recent CC0 discussion, I’m refreshing my mind on what > rights are provided under patent law, each of the OSD criteria, and any > connections between them. > > From my reading, a patent gives the holder the right to exclude others > from (a) making, (b) using, (c) selling, or (d) importing/exporting their > invention. The OSD clauses refer to “the distribution terms” in rather > license- and copyright-agnostic terms, so here’s my basic layman analysis: > > 1) Exclusion (a) seems not problematic for the OSD as it precludes others > outside of licensing. > 2) Certainly a problem in the broad sense, but exclusion (b) seems not > problematic with the OSD. > 3) Exclusion (c) seems to fail OSD clause #1 (Free Redistribution) and > possibly #7 (Distribution of license). > 4) Exclusion (d) similarly fails #1 and #7. > > So what? In terms of OSD compliance, there appears to be several issues > if a patent exists and one does not grant/hold a royalty-free patent > license. If I have a software patent and license that software under CC0, > for example, without any other distribution terms in place, it’s my reading > that this would technically be distribution terms that violate OSD #1 and > #7. > > This creates an interesting situation where “the distribution terms” of > some software will depend on whether the distributor holds a patent, not > necessarily on the language of their license. There are, of course, ample > examples of licenses that convey conforming patent rights, both implicit > and explicitly. > > Does anyone disagree that holding a patent and not granting a patent > license violates the OSD, perhaps as an out-of-band perspective? Should > the OSD only be measured against a copyright standard, as originally > drafted? Does OSI need to clarify “all bets are off” if there’ s a patent > or consider them as part of the distribution terms equally? What are other > people’s thoughts on this? > > Cheers! > Sean > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@opensource.org > https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss >
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