What would work instead of the MXM public license?

Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu
Wed Apr 15 16:47:14 UTC 2009


Carlo Piana wrote:
> a) If the conditions extend to all patents (but all patents of whom?),

At the very least, the licensors.  Yes, there are various devious ways
you can assign things so one party holds copyright, and another patents.
 But explicitly allowing the licensors themselves to sue recipients for
patent infringements is in no way compliant.

> then there is no issue about discrimination or else, the patent covenant
> I have inserted is just a mitigation of the non-compliance introduced by
> withholding the patents, but it is insufficient because it does not
> reach all the domains of endeavour as it is mandated by rule #1.

Again, there is no "safe" field of endeavour.  Even a home user could
infringe a patent, just by using software.  No, they probably won't be
sued, but they're not safe either.

> The license is a pre-condition, but it is not sufficient.

Agreed.

> If you think that this license is "open source", then we have a serious problem.

Obviously not.  It's a frank enough "reference" (or whatever you want to
call it) license that explicitly disclaims a patent license.

Matt Flaschen



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