Royalty-free Patent Policies for Open Source?

[Brian Behlendorf]

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
> Almost every patent grant included in an OSI-approved open source
> license already meets the new W3C patent policy.  Here, for example, is
> how the Open Software License (OSL) says it:
>
>    2) Grant of Patent License. Licensor hereby grants
>    You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual,
>    non-sublicenseable license, under patent claims owned or
>    controlled by the Licensor that are embodied in the Original
>    Work as furnished by the Licensor ("Licensed Claims") to make,
>    use, sell and offer for sale the Original Work.  Licensor
>    hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive,
>    perpetual, non-sublicenseable license under the Licensed Claims
>    to make, use, sell and offer for sale Derivative Works.

That appears to only apply to the grants that the Licensor owns.  What
about the patent grants from contributors?  That was the meat of the
question I sent here a few days ago.  Few patent holders would be willing
to essentially grant the right to sublicense a patent to an open source
project (that wasn't their own).  In fact most fall far short of that, and
my query was around what a group like the ASF should do.

	Brian




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