Intel's proposed BSD + Patent License

[DIETRICH Yann FTRD/VAT/ISS]

what is the policy of opensource about patents ? and such license in
opensource license ? what is the way ? 
I think it is important to integrate patents issues in such license. In
fact, the main risk for a patent holder is not about licensing business but
to not exhaust its patent rights in a non delimited field. I think that a
lot of patent holder will be agree to grant license for use in the "
opensource " field but not in the traditional business field, that is the
purpose of the limitation of Intel, i think. But, the problem with BSD, or
in my case with LGPL, is that such software can be integrated in a
traditionnal commercial software, and in this case, patent holder would like
to have money. And not if the software is integrated in an opensource
software .. ... finally, most of big companies will enter in opensource
process if they have solutions to manage such issues, I think and it can be
great for the developement of opensource software, no ??? 

regards, 

-----------------------------
Yann Dietrich 
IP/Licensing Legal Counsel 
France Telecom R&D / VAT 
member of the editorial board of http://www.juriscom.net 
homepage : http://www.chez.com/ydietrich
 

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Karsten M. Self [mailto:kmself at ix.netcom.com]
> Envoye : mercredi 31 octobre 2001 09:45
> A : license-discuss at opensource.org
> Objet : Re: Intel's proposed BSD + Patent License
> 
> 
> on Tue, Oct 30, 2001 at 09:32:40PM -0800, David Johnson 
> (david at usermode.org) wrote:
> > On Tuesday 30 October 2001 09:07 pm, Russell Nelson wrote:
> > 
> > >  > ??? GPL my copy of FreeBSD ???
> > >  >
> > >  > Precisely how do I go about this? Replace all copies 
> of the BSD license
> > >  > under /usr/src and recompile?
> > >
> > > Why bother?  Why not simply decide in your own head that, 
> if you ever
> > > give away a copy of your FreeBSD, you'll do so under the 
> GPL.  Poof,
> > > instant GPL'ed operating system.
> > 
> > Okay, we can play fun little metaphysical games with the 
> BSD license, but it 
> > ignores an important point: the BSD+Patent License 
> restricts what operating 
> > systems you may use it on. I can't use it on Solaris, QNX 
> or IRIX. And I 
> > can't use it on some imaginary MPL or QPL licensed OS. This 
> is a violation of 
> > clause 8. Wasn't the OpenMotif license reject for the same reason?
> 
> I'd disqualify it on 6, but not 8.  It's not specific to a 
> product, but
> it *is* specific to a field of endeavor:  OS applications.
> 
> Peace.
> 
> -- 
> Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>       
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