[License-discuss] comprehensiveness (or not) of the OSI-approved list

[Lawrence Rosen]

Bruce Perens wrote:

> Larry, what about companies that separate their patent-holding entity from their operational entity, the entity that touches Open Source, and the entity that brings lawsuits? I do know for a fact that Qualcomm operates a separate entity for their Open Source involvement.

 

Bruce, I won't speak directly about Qualcomm and that typical IP solution that such companies create. Nor will I speak about all other open source licenses, but I tried to define "You" and "Control" appropriately in the OSL/AFL 3.0 in order specifically to address that problem. Perhaps clever lawyers can address clever workarounds?

 

We know the BSD doesn't even try to address them.

 

Best, /Larry

 

 

From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> 
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2019 11:44 AM
To: Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>; license-discuss at lists.opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] comprehensiveness (or not) of the OSI-approved list

 

Larry, what about companies that separate their patent-holding entity from their operational entity, the entity that touches Open Source, and the entity that brings lawsuits? I do know for a fact that Qualcomm operates a separate entity for their Open Source involvement.

 

    Thanks

 

    Bruce

 

On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 10:42 AM Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com <mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> > wrote:

Nicholas Matthew Neft Weinstock wrote:
> .  If a program has functionality covered by a patent owned by a completely unrelated 3rd party, the program's license doesn't give all the Patent rights a user needs.  At best, you could claim that the program's license gives all the Patent rights FROM THE IDENTIFIED CONTRIBUTORS that a user needs.

 

Don't forget the important defensive termination provisions in some licenses. If the copyright license to an important open source program is terminated because of the filing by that third party of a patent lawsuit against that program, this may be a sufficient defense for protecting our software. Even third parties must be careful who they sue.

 

/Larry

 

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-- 

Bruce Perens - Partner, OSS.Capital <http://OSS.Capital> .

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