[cc-licenses] Unbundling the GPL
Joachim Durchholz
jo at durchholz.org
Sun Apr 29 18:46:26 EDT 2007
Javier Candeira schrieb:
> GPL v2 does protect the work from software patents.
Ah, I seem to have overlooked that one.
I have two nits to pick with your statement:
1) Software cannot be protected from patents. Protection from patents is
something that can be granted to persons or companies, not to software.
(This is slightly hair-splitting, but saying "the software is protected"
doesn't make sure whether it's the licensor or the licensee who's
protected.)
2) The protection that this license offers is rather marginal. No
language in a license can protect the licensees from third-party patents.
Worse, this offers an opportunity for a nasty trick: if the license is
advertised as "protects from patents", a company can create a subsidiary
that owns and distributes GPL software that uses patents held by the
parent company. The parent company stays silent about the patents, waits
until the software is used by many people, then comes forth, announces
the patent and collects.
With the right construction, the relationship between company and
subsidiary need not even be public.
The only thing that helps against this kind of plot is the counterplot
to any software patents: do the patent research, and good luck to you...
Nit (2) essentially says that the website should be very, very careful
about claiming any kind of protection. Even if the website authors
cannot be held responsible if somebody relies on the information given,
a single case where somebody is damaged can destroy CC's reputation in
no time at all.
Regards,
Jo
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