[License-discuss] Open source software licenses and the OSD

[Nicholas Matthew Neft Weinstock]

More when I get a chance, but briefly on this:

“…and let OSI define Open Source Copyrights with the OSD.”

We are of one mind!

-Nick

From: Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>
Sent: Friday, November 9, 2018 11:19 AM
To: Nicholas Matthew Neft Weinstock <nweinsto at qti.qualcomm.com>; license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Cc: Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: [License-discuss] Open source software licenses and the OSD

Nicholas Weinstein wrote:
> But with patents only the first inventor gets patent protection, so there is always a possibility that someone who has never contributed to the project has a valid patent covering some of the functionality (presuming patents cover software at all, which is a separate discussion).

We should separate copyrights from patents – at least legally, although they are referenced in the same provision of the U.S. Constitution. You refer more generally to intellectual property, and that's probably too BIG a topic for just this list.

We should trust W3C to define Royalty-Free Patents and let OSI define Open Source Copyrights with the OSD. When you put these definitions both together, the software will be about as free as possible under existing law.

> I would be happy to suggest tweaking the wording to address my two points if appropriate, but I don’t want to overstep if that’s not the intention.

That is my hope. It would not be an overstep!!!!

/Larry
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