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No it is not, and that is what so many people misunderstand about this. Plain BSD has an implicit patent grant to the extent needed to run the software. An expl
by pdfernhout 9y ago
No it is not, and that is what so many people misunderstand about this. Plain BSD has an implicit patent grant to the extent needed to run the software. An explicit patent license overrides that implicit grant. Of course, that interpretation is still subject to what the courts say in a lawsuit.
Of course, you are right that legal and corporate should review such a license. And for any company that deals in patents (or has customers who deal in patents), the likely answer is "no way".
- votepaunchy 9y agoThat assumption of an 'implicit' grant is quite tenuous. You have taken it as invalidated by a PATENTS file, what if instead of a PATENTS file Facebook legal had blogged that they don't believe in an implicit grant? Does that nullify the grant of patents? What if stated by a project contributor? That's the conundrum for any open source project and the exposed danger of the BSD license.
- pdfernhout 9y agoSee my other comment here on implicit patent grants: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051166 I doubt some statement of opinion in some out-of-the-way place that did not accompany the software directly would hold up in court. That said, your point on uncertainty is why many people prefer the Apache2 License or the GPL3 which have an explicit patent grant (but not a one-sided grant like in Facebook's PATENTS file).