4 ms·
What if someone writes some free software code to intentionally use one of their patents so it can be liberated?
by cyphar 8y ago
What if someone writes some free software code to intentionally use one of their patents so it can be liberated?
- intern4tional 8y agoI think that's kind of the entire idea. Microsoft is expecting people to use the IP in the patents to write code for Linux now without fear of being sued. When they donated the IP to OIN, for all intensive purposes the patents were liberated given OIN's wide coverage.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zaarn 8y agoThat's not quite how patent licenses work. Even if you got a license for a patent for yourself and wrote free software for it, if someone else gets it they might need a patent license too, regardless of your project being free software. Your FOSS/FLOSS license might include a patent clause but that means you'd first need the right to issue licenses for the patent, in case you don't, the clause is void.
- cyphar 8y agoIf the OIN patent agreemnent doesn't allow licensing patents to downstream users (Apache or GPLv3 style) then it would be completely useless wouldn't it? RedHat's users could still be sued even though RedHat is a member of the OIN.
- zaarn 8y agoAFAICT the OIN patent agreement does allow sublicensing, but you shouldn't assume that because a free implementation exists, the patent is now "liberated".