> 5. Reciprocity. If You institute patent litigation against a
> Contributor with respect to a patent applicable to software
> (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then
> any patent licenses granted by that Contributor to You under
> this License shall terminate as of the date such litigation is
> filed.
This first clause applies to any lawsuit against any contributor
regarding any patent "applicable to software". This is *way* too broad
to be free. Suppose SCO had been a Contributor and had granted an
appropriate patent license. Then IBM would lose its patent license
under this License due to an *entirely different* case not connected to
this work. Further, suppose that there exists one legitimate patent
somewhere in the world which is applicable to software -- it cannot be
enforced against any contributor ever. That's quite a bizarre and
extreme requirement.
In addition, if You institute patent litigation against
> any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a
> lawsuit) alleging that the Work itself (excluding combinations
> of the Work with other software or hardware) infringes Your
> patent(s), then any patent licenses granted to You under this
> License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such
> litigation is filed.
In contrast, this second clause may be considered DFSG-free, I believe.
It states that claiming that *this work* infringes your patents causes
your patent licenses for *this work* to be terminated. This is a clause
protecting the work's freeness, which *only* applies to people
attempting to make the work non-free.
Anyone else agree with my assessment? :-)
--Nathanael
