[License-review] Submitting CC0 for OSI approval

[John Cowan]

Clark C. Evans scripsit:

> As a test, you could think of adding the exact wording of section
> 4a as an "additional non-permissive term" under section 7.  

The trouble with that theory is that section 4a is not a term at all.
It neither grants nor refuses a patent license.  It's just a statement
of fact, like the other subclauses of clause 4.

This is also the reason why 4a passes muster under clause 11 of the GPLv3.
If you distribute a work containing both GPL and CC0 sections *having
actual knowledge* that there is a patent that reads on the CC0 code (whether
the author's or not), then you are in violation of the GPL.  But without
the actual knowledge, it's not a problem.  Nobody can expect, receiving
open-source code, that the distributor will defend it against arbitrary
patent claims from third parties.

As usual, IANAL, TINLA, but not the UPL either.

-- 
What is the sound of Perl?  Is it not the       John Cowan
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