Re: bsd license question

[Dirk-Willem van Gulik <dirkx@webweaving.org>]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Jens Ropers wrote:

> You asked how to rework clause 3. Here is my modest proposal:
>
> curl -O http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt
> vi LICENSE-2.0.txt
> /3
> d}
> :wq

Which is taken as a serious and contructive proposal. As this is a worry
which is widely shared.

3	Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
	License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide,
	non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in
	this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell,
	import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only
	to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily
	infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their
	Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.

	If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a
	cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a
	Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or
	contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You
	under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such
	litigation is filed.

But is it just the last paragraphwhich is the issue - or the whole of
clause 3 as a whole ? Because with just the first paragraph the submarine
issue is addressed to some extend.

Note that Ben Gorn his senario also plays when clause 3 is removed -and-
in that case:

a->	$foo is relatively shielded - as they are not distributinig
	the infringing work.

b->	The ASF is still distributing - so the natural first port
	of call.

c->	And we've now also made the avenues downstream, to the
	actual users, easier.

There is no worry about 'b'; that is what these foundations are for. What
the last sentense of 3  tries to do is make 'c' a bit harder.

> You may say, "hey, wait a minute, we're a lot better than them", but
> that's not the point. Virtually EVERYBODY has a high opinion of

With respect to the trust issue - note that for _patent_ issue it is not
the ASF you need to (not) trust; but the owner of the patent. I.e. there
is little if any room for ASF (ill) intend to be effectuated through it in
its current wording. As it is the patent holder which directly passes the
patent license to the 'You' skipping over the ASF. What the ASF -has- done
is create that avenu/path wit the last sentence of 3.

Dw