STWL 1.0, revision 3

[Mahesh T. Pai]

Bernhard Fastenrath said on Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 07:34:20AM +0100,:

 > I'm sorry, it should have read:
 > 
 >     "5. If you  are owner of software patents  you agree to refrain
 > from any legal action based  on infringement of your claims derived
 > from  said  patents  against  users  of open  source  software  and
 > concerning  open source  software  as defined  by  the Open  Source
 > Initiative  (OSI). Failing  to comply  voids this  license  for the
 > validity period of said software patent."

OSI compliance  apart, this  clause treats only  the symptom  that too
when patients of a certain kind exhibit them, and not the disease that
software patents are.

I still  feel that you need  to rephrase and polish  this.  As pointed
out,  you might  be better  off reusing  a paragraph  from one  of the
already approved licenses.

Here are my concerns about this:-

``legal  action'' --  what  is that??  Does  a DMCA  cease and  desist
request constitute  legal action? (I am  not from the US,  but I think
somebody from US can elaborate on this).

``against users of ...'' -- what happens if a claim is raised against
a distributor??

``for  the validity period  of the  ...'' --  I am  not sure  that all
jurisdictions will accept the concept  of a license valid when granted
is avoided, only to be revived at a later point of time.

-- 
         Mahesh T. Pai    <<>>   http://paivakil.port5.com