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Apple can only confer redistribution rights for patents they own. If they - or any other gcc contributor for that matter - mistakenly or deliberately reproduced

by pohl 16y ago

Apple can only confer redistribution rights for patents they own. If they - or any other gcc contributor for that matter - mistakenly or deliberately reproduced an invention patented by someone else (IBM, Microsoft, Intel...) and contributed it to gcc, then the clause you mention affords you no protection whatsoever.

rbanffy 16y ago
What part of Apple becoming belligerent on patents they own didn't you get? Obviously no FLOSS license will protect you from patents the contributor doesn't own. In you example, if IBM, Microsoft or Intel contributed their own patented tech to GCC, they wouldn't be able to sue any user of the GPL'ed code. My doubts are about BSD-ish licenses - if contributing your patented tech to a BSD project doesn't put you in position to sue downstream users that didn't receive the right to use it directly from you.
- pohl 16y ago
  The plausibility part.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Companies come and go. If one company that contributes its own patented tech to a project like LLVM gets acquired by a troll, what protection users would have? I see no reason to trust a company to behave responsibly towards a community if and when it no longer needs it. Your insistence in stating the obvious - that nothing protects users from third-party patents - while refusing to acknowledge the question of how much BSD-like licenses protect users from patents owned by those who contribute code to BSD-licensed projects is disturbing.
    - pohl 16y ago
      It's not that I don't acknowledge that your emperor is wearing pasties, I just don't think they cover enough to be considered clothing. I think the onus is on you, as the advocate of this clause, to name one actual patent troll case that would have been prevented by it. SCO wouldn't have been prevented. The recent Oracle action against Google would not have been prevented. So which one? You need to provide protection from actual, plausible danger to justify the doubt, uncertainty, and fear that you are keen to spread.

by pohl 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago

What part of Apple becoming belligerent on patents they own didn't you get? Obviously no FLOSS license will protect you from patents the contributor doesn't own. In you example, if IBM, Microsoft or Intel contributed their own patented tech to GCC, they wouldn't be able to sue any user of the GPL'ed code. My doubts are about BSD-ish licenses - if contributing your patented tech to a BSD project doesn't put you in position to sue downstream users that didn't receive the right to use it directly from you.

pohl 16y ago
The plausibility part.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Companies come and go. If one company that contributes its own patented tech to a project like LLVM gets acquired by a troll, what protection users would have? I see no reason to trust a company to behave responsibly towards a community if and when it no longer needs it. Your insistence in stating the obvious - that nothing protects users from third-party patents - while refusing to acknowledge the question of how much BSD-like licenses protect users from patents owned by those who contribute code to BSD-licensed projects is disturbing.
  - pohl 16y ago
    It's not that I don't acknowledge that your emperor is wearing pasties, I just don't think they cover enough to be considered clothing. I think the onus is on you, as the advocate of this clause, to name one actual patent troll case that would have been prevented by it. SCO wouldn't have been prevented. The recent Oracle action against Google would not have been prevented. So which one? You need to provide protection from actual, plausible danger to justify the doubt, uncertainty, and fear that you are keen to spread.