From: Tim Hunter <cyclists@...>
Date: 2005-01-20T22:06:00+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Open Source Licenses against Software Patents

Pit Capitain wrote:

> Applying for a new RubyForge project is harder than I thought :-), cause I
> have to choose a suitable license. I'd like to have a very liberal and
> easily understandable one like the MIT license [1] for example. But I also
> want to explicitly exclude companies holding software patents from this
> license. Do you know of any licenses with similar goals?
> 
> Regards,
> Pit
> 
> [1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html

Nothing exactly like that. Several licenses have patent defense clauses,
though. These clauses terminate the license if the licensee initiates a
patent infringement claim. You might check out the Academic Free License
(http://www.opensource.org/licenses/afl-2.1.php). This is a BSD-style
license. Section 10 says

"Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically
and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this
License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or
counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original
Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an
action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work
with other software or hardware."


Lawrence Rosen wrote the AFL. His book _Open Source Licensing_ is a very
good resource if you're serious about this topic.