APSL 1.1 available for comment.
Ken Arromdee
arromdee at inetnow.net
Tue Apr 20 00:03:47 UTC 1999
The revised version now adds to the withdrawal clause saying that once a claim
of infringement is decided by a court, Apple has to un-withdraw the rights if
possible.
At first glance this seems to alleviate the problems people have with Apple's
right to withdraw the license. But it doesn't. The only kind of claim that
is required is a claim. It doesn't have to be a valid claim, or a legal claim,
and it doesn't have to be a claim that was taken to court at all--the hot dog
vendor on the street corner can claim infringement and if the claim never goes
to court, Apple can still withdraw the license for all eternity.
It also raises the problem (first raised in connection with the export clause)
of what happens to people in foreign countries. If, say, the software is
claimed to infringe someone's patent, but a person is in a foreign country
that does not recognize software patents, Apple can use the withdrawal clause
and restrict that person's use of the software anyway.
(The section of the Open Source definition these violate, of course, is the
one about free redistribution.)
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
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