For approval: MXM Public license

Lawrence Rosen lrosen at rosenlaw.com
Fri Apr 10 17:24:46 UTC 2009


Russ Nelson wrote: 
> Lawyers don't give you business advice.  They give you legal advice.
> If you never ignore your lawyers' advice, you're not taking enough
> legal risks.

Russ, there are so many things to argue about in those three sentences....
But I don't dare start another thread on here in defense of lawyers. :-)

Suffice it to say, the MXM Public License doesn't pass the OSD test.

/Larry
  [A lawyer who gives both business advice and legal advice, 
   and hopes his clients at least listen to his advice before
   ignoring it]

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russ Nelson [mailto:nelson at crynwr.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 9:51 AM
> To: License Review
> Subject: Re: For approval: MXM Public license
> 
> Simon Phipps writes:
>  >
>  > On Apr 10, 2009, at 16:36, Russ Nelson wrote:
>  > > If the water were *that* muddy, then someone would have by now used
>  > > the BSD on patented software, gained a market, and then pointed to
> the
>  > > patent.  They could defend themselves against a reliance counter-suit
>  > > by pointing to the utter lack of a patent license in the BSD text.
>  > >
>  > > Except ... that nobody has done that because the water isn't very
>  > > muddy.
>  >
>  > I'd suggest no-one has done it because anyone worth targeting with
>  > that predatory behaviour has been advised BSD-licensed source comes
>  > with no patent licenses and should be treated with extreme caution.
>  > Based on my own experience and advice received, of course.
> 
> Yeah, and evolution is just a theory.
> 
> Lawyers don't give you business advice.  They give you legal advice.
> If you never ignore your lawyers' advice, you're not taking enough
> legal risks.
> 
> If anybody thought that the BSD *didn't* come with an implicit patent
> license, then somebody would have at least *asserted* "You have no
> patent license".  And yet nobody has.  Easy to prove me wrong.  All
> you need is a single inconvenient fact.
> 
> --
> --my blog is at    http://blog.russnelson.com
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