[License-review] Submitting CC0 for OSI approval

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bruce Perens (bruce at perens.com):

> I am still trying to understand why someone writing licenses for
> Creative Commons felt that the trademark and patent rights of
> someone dedicating material to the public domain were so important
> that it was necessary to disclaim that they were being dedicated,
> and /then /did not write anything about the right to exercise the
> necessary patent claims into the waiver or the public license
> fallback.

This should rightly be addressed by a CC representative rather than me, 
but in my experience CC have always been tightly focussed on removing
copyright-based obstacles to reuse / remix of cultural works, thus
maximising the commons for that reuse.  Towards that end, they have
crafted a number of very diverse licences, some of them deliberately
proprietary, with an eye to making at least one of them attractive to
anyone who would even consider granting reuse rights provided that some
other of his/her rights remain reserved.

That focus has been so consistent that it might just not have occurred
to them that the intent of CC0 would be even better served if licensor
also granted necessary patent rights without charge -- _or_ it might be 
that reuse/remix over the long term would be maximised by not dipping
into the Slough of Despond that is patents (which, unlike copyrights of
late, at least expire and go away).

I'm also wondering if the sorts of works likely to be put under CC0 are
even much at risk from patent claims (just raising the question; not
making a claim, here).