STWL 1.0, revision 5

[Bernhard Fastenrath]

Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:

> Bernhard Fastenrath wrote:
> 
>>    5. In case the licensee takes legal action alleging infringement of 
>>software patents the licensee holds, excluding countersuits, and 
>>concerning open source software as defined by the Open Source Initiative 
>>(OSI) this license is suspended for the duration of the validity of said 
>>patents.
> 
> 
> This sounds fine in principle. But you obviously realize that no
> patent holder will ever use your software...
> 
> 
>>    6. If any part of this license might be against the local or 
>>otherwise relevant law or become ineffective in any other way, the rest 
>>of the license looses it?s effect.
> 
> 
> I think the verb is "loses" and it's its (possessive). And it
> is custom to say "retains its effect", so I'm a little surprised
> that you want the license to terminate if you put in a clause
> that's held unlawful. But in principle it's legal.

Yes, thank you. I turned the phrase around because I want the license
to lose its effect in case there fifth paragraph is not acceptable to 
the competent courts of a country. That leaves the licensee without a
license, which is exactly the desired effect if he resorts to attacking
open source projects with software patent claims.

It's only reasonable that you can't borrow my car after burning down my
house. Some companies claiming software patent infringement against open 
source software [users] are doing just that: They are trying to make 
open source software unusable for a large number of users claiming 
patent rights for inventions that could have come from a pupil in basic 
school.

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