<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:transparent">On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 5:56\u202fPM Josh Berkus <<a href="mailto:josh@berkus.org">josh@berkus.org</a>> wrote:</span></div></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
I'll stand by my claim, though, that any argument that can be made <br>
against the principle* of a copyright antisuit provision applies equally <br>
to a patent one. And that if OSI decides that the former isn't <br>
OSI-compliant, then the latter isn't either, and we're going to need to <br>
revisit a lot of licenses.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">This is clearly one of the questions the OSI needs to resolve: is there something special about copyright? Or is there something special about patent?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In terms of historical precedent, I think we can leave the long-abandoned OCLC license aside as a likely case where the early OSI wasn't thinking about things as carefully as the present-day OSI would (that's about as charitable as I'm willing to be here). Having looked at the OCLC license-discuss thread the other day, I don't think anyone paid any attention to the litigation termination provision. I wonder actually if some of the license-discuss participants noticed it but thought "intellectual property" was synonymous with "patent", but I don't think any of the participants were on the board at the time other than Russ Nelson. I seriously think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the OCLC lawyers who *drafted* the license sincerely thought "intellectual property infringement litigation" was synonymous with "patent infringement litigation". </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The OSI should also think about the other side of the question. If a copyright trigger for license termination (including copyright license termination) is okay in addition to a patent litigation trigger, what about other kinds of claims? Trademark infringement? Trade secret? What about claims concerning things having no connection to the software (or model, etc.) being licensed? Shareholder litigation? Personal injury? Employment discrimination? </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The IBM Public License says:<br><br>"<span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">If Recipient institutes patent litigation against a Contributor with respect to a patent applicable to software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then any patent licenses granted by that Contributor to such Recipient under this Agreement shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed."</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font color="#58595b" face="Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14px;background-color:rgb(247,247,247)">Assuming the OSI would consider this acceptable in an open source license today, what if instead it said:<br><br>"</span></font><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">If Recipient institutes copyright litigation against a Contributor with respect to a copyright applicable to software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then any copyright licenses granted by that Contributor to such Recipient under this Agreement shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed."</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">Surely that would not be okay ... would it?</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);color:rgb(88,89,91);font-family:Roboto,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px">Richard</span></div><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div>