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The GPL doesn't offer any special protection against third party patents, and there's no way it could, given the way patents work.
by bramcohen 16y ago
The GPL doesn't offer any special protection against third party patents, and there's no way it could, given the way patents work.
- rbanffy 16y agoI am not considering 3rd party patents, but Apple's. If Apple includes some patented tech into a contribution to LLVM or Clang, what guarantees I have they will not sue non-Apple downstream users?
- pohl 16y ago...in case it decides every Linux kernel on every non-iPhone smartphone...infringes some patent they have that touches LLVM in some way. Is there some legal precedent you know of wherein compiler patents extend to the output of the compiler?
- rbanffy 16y agoWhat if the output of the compiler uses some method you patented?
- pohl 16y agoThen I suppose the community can fork from the revision prior to where that patented technique landed in the tree, just as with any other OSI-approved license. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php http://www.opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php
- rbanffy 16y agoSo, the license offers no protection at all...
- pohl 16y agoDepends on one's perspective. Not long ago the meme de jour was that open-source transparency & fork-ability was the ultimate protection to corporate evils. By the standard you're setting, the only safe compiler would be one you wrote yourself and revealed to no one. What compilers do you use?