STWL 1.0, revision 3

[Bernhard Fastenrath]

Mahesh T. Pai wrote:

> 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'm trying to provide antibiotics. I'm also trying to aid in preventing
the disease to spread in europe. There's no reason to do only one if you
can do both. Your statement hints of a false choice 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_choice).

> 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).

I would consider any action invoking legal authorities to pursue the
infringement of your claims derived from your software patents to be
a legal action. Is this really subject to dispute?

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

Commercial distributors can simply refuse to be liable for any resulting 
patent dispute. There's no need to protect them as they can protect 
themself.

> ``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.

That's interesting; my fear was that a license you can establish simply
by downloading a software and complying with its term afterwards can
be reestablished any time if there's no clause denying you to license
the software at that time.

-- 
www.citizens-initiative.org <http://www.citizens-initiative.org/>