On 2004-05-13 02:53:33 +0100 Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
To me, it seems clearly non-free because it terminates if there is
legal action against IBM about patents "applicable to" some other
software. [...]
It only terminates a patent license, not a copyright license. That
just makes the license effectively mute about patents (which is true
of most licenses we look at). Patents were also discussed for an
Intel license [1].
This seems rather worse than being mute about patents, putting IBM in
a position of strength if software patents are involved.
So the IBM Public License patent licence is some kind of
self-contaminating. Is that as non-free as a self-contaminating
copyright licence? Does self-contamination count as contaminating
other licences by imposing restrictions on them that aren't in their
licences?
Are there patents on the covered work? I guess that is the determining
factor, as otherwise the patent licence seems irrelevant. Why include
it if there are no patents, though?
The Intel drivers licence appears to be a different question.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
