On Wed, 14 Sep 2016 09:14:49 +1000 Ben Finney wrote:
[...]
> Such a clause is IMO a restriction on the free redistribution of the
> work: it retroactively revokes the grant of copyright license to the
> recipient, based not on any violation of copyright.
>
> For comparison, the GPLv3 and Artistic v2 license conditions deal with
> patents by granting *more* freedom, not less. They each explicitly grant
> to the recipient freedom from restrictions by patents in the work held
> by its copyright holders.
I am not so sure that the GNU GPL v3 is so different.
It's true that it grants freedom from restrictions by patents in the
work held by its copyright holders, as you say (I assume you are
referring to section 11), but it also forbids initiating patent
litigation and it terminates the rights granted by the licensor for
those who do not comply with this prohibition. Section 8 states, in
part:
| You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
| provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or
| modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under
| this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third
| paragraph of section 11).
[...]
and section 10 states, in part:
[...]
| You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the
| rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may
| not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of
| rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation
| (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that
| any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for
| sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.
Maybe I am misreading something, but I don't see a huge difference
between this clause of the GNU GPL v3 and the custom clause under
discussion.
One difference seems to be that the GNU GPL v3 forbids patent litigation
related to the licensed work against *any* target.
On the other hand, the custom clause under discussion only forbids
patent litigation related to the licensed work against the *copyright
holder or any contributor*. While I dislike this discrimination,
it seems to me that the custom clause forbids *less* than what is
forbidden by the GNU GPL v3.
Or am I misunderstanding the clauses?
[...]
> You could recommend to the copyright holder that if they want to protect
> recipients against patent action, they should instead grant license
> under the Apache or GNU GPL license terms which are already well-known
> to result in free works.
This recommendation is a good one, regardless of the outcome of
our discussion on the custom clause.
Besides, we must not forget that license proliferation is a plague
that should be avoided as much as possible.
--
http://www.inventati.org/frx/
There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
. Francesco Poli .
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