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

[Richard Fontana]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 5:16 PM Pamela Chestek <pamela at chesteklegal.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/29/2026 7:34 AM, John Colagioia via License-review wrote:

> > And even if we consider the anti-lawsuit thing legitimately "open"
> > after decades to the contrary, it seems far too broad without a strict
> > definition of "participate."  Witnesses, jurors, and the entire
> > defense participate in lawsuits, but could all have their work
> > impacted if their employer requires use of an LLM released under the
> > OpenMDW's terms and involved in their case.  "They don't mean that,"
> > sure, but not providing bright-line definitions means that the vendor
> > has oversight over who uses the product, in other words NOT a public
> > license.
>
> That's an interesting point, it is not the language typically used:
>
> OpenMDW-1.1 - "If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in a
> lawsuit ..."
>
> Apache 2.0 - "If You institute patent litigation against any entity ..."
>
> Eclipse 2.0 - "If Recipient institutes patent litigation against any
> entity ..."
>
> Mozilla 2.0 - "If You initiate litigation against any entity ..."
>
> GPL v3 - "you may not initiate litigation ..."

It looks like this "voluntarily participate" langauge may have its
origin in a set of Microsoft public patent forbearance statements from
20+ years ago, unless it's older than that:
Open Specification Promise (2006?)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/dev_center/ms-devcentlp/1c24c7c8-28b0-4ce1-a47d-95fe1ff504bc
Microsoft Community Promise (2007?)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/dev_center/ms-devcentlp/8b8d1b7a-a10a-4667-9558-6d9c43adf60d

It also appears in the Open Web Foundation Final Specification
Agreement (OWFa) 1.0 which seems to have been introduced in 2011:
https://www.openwebfoundation.org/the-agreements/the-owf-1-0-agreements-granted-claims/owfa-1-0

While I doubt the interpretation suggested by John is what is intended
in these documents, I'm not entirely sure what "voluntarily
participate" is specifically supposed to cover.

Richard