[License-review] Request for consultation with CC on patent issue

Thorsten Glaser tg at mirbsd.de
Tue Feb 21 00:16:22 UTC 2012


Bruce Perens dixit:

> Fontana and I appear to be agreed that*CC should be asked to add language to
> CC0: an explicit permission to make use of patent claims necessary to use the
> software in the form that was dedicated or licensed.

This.
Does.
Not.
Work.

If there are _any_ patent claims on the work, chances are
bigger than 99.999% that the author of the work cannot
licence them as they're not his anyway.

Any patent clauses in recent OSS licences are really only
meant for big companies which release stuff as OSS. Or even
scare them away.

So please, can we keep OSD compliance checks to copyright
licencing or at least be consistent and also require
trademark licencing and invalidate all currently approved
licences </sarcasm start="or at least">.

Clear NAK on your proposal. Starting things like that now
is unfair to late-comers. OSI should stick to what it used
to do in that realm. Offer another certification for your
patent stuff (but see above for why it won't work).

bye,
//mirabilos
-- 
I believe no one can invent an algorithm. One just happens to hit upon it
when God enlightens him. Or only God invents algorithms, we merely copy them.
If you don't believe in God, just consider God as Nature if you won't deny
existence.		-- Coywolf Qi Hunt



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