[License-discuss] [License-review] CC0 incompliant with OSD on patents, [was: MXM compared to CC0 ]

[Jim Jagielski]

On Mar 9, 2012, at 11:23 AM, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Jim Jagielski (jim at jimjag.com):
> 
>> BTW: How is this different from, say, the US export control provisions?
>> In both cases, a codebase is encumbered by external, and "localized"
>> restrictions. So does this mean that software distributed out of
>> the US, no matter the OSI license, isn't "really" open source?
> 
> During the period that the RSA algorithm was encumbered by a (somewhat
> weak and potentially challengable) patent in USA jurisdictions, mod_ssl
> was widely considered to effectively not be open source when deployed in
> the USA, yes.
> 

But that's not the point... the point is that if we are looking
at adjusting the OSD, or acceptance/validation of a license, based
on whether or not it addresses patents, then why aren't we also
worried about such issues as the export control, etc...

I see no difference between the statements "We can't approve this
because it doesn't address patents" and "We can't approve this
because it doesn't address the US export laws."