[License-review] ModelGo Attribution License, Version 2.0 FINAL CALL FOR COMMENTS

[Pamela Chestek]

Moming,

I'm not following what you're saying. As I understand McCoy's point, it 
is this:

- Licensor is any contributor who added copyrightable content;

- User A is someone who is using Licensor's version of the software but 
has not contributed any copyrightable content and is not distributing 
the software;

-User B is someone who is using Licensor's version of the software, has 
not contributed any copyrightable content, but is distributing the 
software, who you are characterizing as a sublicensor of Licensor's rights;

- User C is the person who owns the allegedly infringed patent.

===============

User C sues a Licensor for patent infringement - the license terminates.

User C sues User A for for patent infringement - the license does not 
terminate because User A is not a Licensor of anything, they are just 
using the software.

User C sues User B for patent infringement - the license does not 
terminate. First, characterizing User B as a sublicensor may not be a 
correct assumption - why wouldn't User C say "no, I'm not a sublicensee 
of User B, I'm a direct licensee of Licensor who I haven't sued, so the 
license doesn't terminate"? But even assuming User B is a sublicensor, 
it doesn't terminate the license. User B is a sublicensor, not */"the 
/*Licensor," i.e., the "rights owner" per your definition, so the 
license doesn't terminate.

That is the discrimination that I understand McCoy to be describing. The 
license only terminates if User C sues someone who contributed 
copyrightable content, because those are the only people (or companies) 
who have a license that can be terminated. Everyone else can still be 
sued for copyright infringement.

The use of the word "the" in "the Licensor" in the termination section 
is problematic for another reason. The corpus may have many licensors. I 
think the more natural reading is that only the license from the person 
being sued terminates, not all of them. If it said "any legal action 
against */_a_/* Licensor alleging that the Licensed Materials and/or 
Derivative Materials infringe any patent worldwide" would terminate all 
of them. But that doesn't solve the problem described above with mere 
users, not contributors, being the defendant in the patent suit.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
4641 Post St.
Unit 4316
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
+1 919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com


On 9/18/2026 2:58 AM, Moming Duan wrote:
> Hi McCoy and all,
>
>
> OSD 5 says the license must not discriminate against any person or 
> group of persons. Here, Licensor is a role in the license, not a 
> person. And the license itself says how the role moves. The Section 
> 2.1 grant is sublicensable, and 2.2(a)(i) requires a copy of this 
> License to travel with every Distribution. Even the definition of 
> "Licensed Materials", things "Distributed by the Licensor", only 
> really works if each distributor is the Licensor for what it 
> distributes. So a licensee who passes the model or a Derivative 
> Material on is granting the license onward. It stands as Licensor to 
> the people it supplied, and a patent claim by those people does 
> trigger termination.
>
> About your May 2025 conclusion, I want to be precise. You wrote then 
> that this termination provision was not an OSD violation but an uptake 
> issue, and that conclusion was about the Derivative Materials part, 
> which is your Q4: 
> https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2025-May/005764.html 
>
> The OSD 5 question, whether the trigger should reach beyond the 
> Licensor, is new in this final call, and you yourself put it as 
> "arguably". So I read it as an open question rather than a settled 
> one, and not something to concede on my own.
>
> It's true that a user who never distributed anything, and sues another 
> licensee, does not lose the license. That is deliberate. The patent 
> grant has one source, and the promise not to assert runs to that 
> source. A dispute between two people who never granted each other 
> anything is outside that exchange.
>
> So my reading is that the clause, as written, does not discriminate 
> against any person or group, and I'd like to keep the current wording.
>
>
> Best,
> Moming
>
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