non-aggression pacts for patents and the GPL

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

>
>
>I'm Will Rodger, and I'm director of public policy at the Open Source and
>Industry Alliance. We're a project of the Computer & Communications
>Industry Association here in Washington DC.
>
>I have a question for y'all.
>

This is not a troll or a hostile person. Will called me (and others) 
about the idea of  adding some sort of  reciprocal non-assertion pact to 
the licensing language for some previously proprietary code a company 
that is a member of his trade group is talking about releasing as open 
source.

I told Will he should submit the idea here and see what other interested 
parties thought of it. I rather like it myself, since it might encourage 
more companies to open their code -- and might even prevent some future 
SCO-type incidents. But that's just me, and I'm an observer rather than 
an expert.

- Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
Editor & Reporter, NewsForge, Slashdot, etc.

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