[License-review] For Approval: OpenMDW License Agreement, versions 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

[Luis Villa]

MPL 2.0’s defensive clause terminates copyright grants specifically because
the patent grant is often such a toothless remedy.

A major software company (and frequent patent litigator) told us that
they’d never ship MPL 2 software because of that, which we counted as a win.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 4:28 AM David Rudin <David at foundational.law> wrote:

>
> The copyright termination remedy has precedent in specification licensing.
> The OWF agreements have carried it since 2009, the Community Specification
> License since 2020. Admittedly, both are specification agreements and were
> never submitted for OSI approval.
>
> OWFa 1.0 § 3.1.2.1 — and 0.9 before it — terminates "all rights, grants,
> and promises made by me to you under this Agreement." Not under Section 3,
> but under the Agreement, and § 2.1 is the copyright grant. The FAQ is
> explicit: the signer's promises not to assert its Granted Claims "and its
> copyrights" terminate; "defensive termination only means that the patent
> and copyright licenses terminate" (Q16). The copyright license is given
> irrevocably "except for defensive purposes" (Q3).
>
> The CSL carries it forward. The copyright license is irrevocable "except
> as expressly stated in this License" (§ 1.1), and the express statement is
> the defensive termination clause, which terminates "any licenses granted
> under this License" (§ 2.1.4).
>
> The reasoning is that an instrument covering one body of material under
> several overlapping IP regimes is granting one IP bargain, not a group of
> individual bargains based on distinct IP regimes.  If the remedy reaches
> only patents, a licensee can assert copyright in the materials it received
> and keep its copyright license to those same materials. Closing that
> asymmetry is the point.
>
> David
>
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