On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 08:19:01AM -0500, Joe Moore wrote: > Here's a bit from a hypothetical software license: > In addition, by using this software, you grant to the Original Author a > non-exclusive right to use, modify, and/or distribute any work of which you > own copyright, for as long as you use or distribute The Program. > > Clearly, no one would argue that this license is a Free Software license. > It requires a significant cost (all of your copyrights) to use the software. > > However, this is essentially what the reciprocal patent clause is requiring. > As part of the Apache license, you must agree not to sue any contributor > for any of your software patents, for as long as you continue to use Apache.
The only problem I see here is return fire: if I'm holding patents as a defense strategy, I want to be able to use them to return fire if an Apache contributor decides to attack me with his own patents, unrelated to Apache. I can't decide if that makes it non-free, or is just an ugly loophole in the license. (I don't care about preserving people's freedom to use patents to restrict freedom, but I do sympathise with allowing them to be used defensely.) > If you do, then all of your Apache use is unlicensed. All you lose is a license to the patents granted by that Contributor (under section 4b). Section 5 does not revoke licenses granted under section 4a, only 4b; you don't lose your copyright license to Apache, and you don't lose patent licenses granted by other Contributors. -- Glenn Maynard
