Copyright/Trademark infringement protection in Free Licenses

[Grant A.]

What are your thoughts on Free Licenses having lines like:

"...following conditions are met:

[...]

* Anyone who introduces code into the source tree that infringes the rights of any party will be alone responsible for the repercussions of doing such an act."

Now in my opinion this would be a great addition to free licenses such as the BSD, GNU GPL, or Creative Commons licenses. It would certainly get a few corporate monkeys off of Linux's back.

Btw, Don't say something like "Why should we acknowledge copyright laws in a license made by forward thinkers?" the answer to that question is this: Most if not all of the Free Licenses are based on U.S./European Copyright law, INCLUDING the GNU GPL.

Thoughts?

[Delever]

What about this:

" Anyone who has thought which infringes rights of any third party and writes that thought down is alone responsible of such an act."

[Grant A.]

Funny how you mock copyright law protection, yet you have a link in your signature that says "Don't Preach Linux".

Any thoughts from Intelligent Life?

[Delever]

You asked for thoughts, so I gave one. Any thoughts on this? :)

[Delever]

Seriously, I think you can choose any license you want for your project. As well as create new one, which is based on GPL.

Now, how would this help? No one with right mind "introduces" code from proprietary software into GPL code. The main reason is, that well, proprietary code is not actually known. So, anything I introduce may one day infringe some copyright I had no knowledge about. If that happens, I can rewrite code, remove it, replace it. However, with that line, word "responsible" appears, and it is not clear what that actually means. So now GPL is no longer protecting me, it says that I may appear guilty at any moment. Why would I want to participate in project where that may happen?

[Grant A.]

A lot of patented code got into the Linux Kernel somehow. Deny it if you want, there is ATLEAST one piece of patented code in the Linux Kernel.

Also, you are already guilty at any moment because the GPL makes it to where you own the software yourself, making you liable for copyright/patent related damages. This extra clause would simply make you not guilty (assuming that you didn't introduce any infringing code).

[Delever]

Check out who is author of linux kernel now. It's not a single person.

[Grant A.]

This would refer to people who contribute infringing code, not people who use it/develop other code for the system.

[smartboyathome]

This would refer to people who contribute infringing code, not people who use it/develop other code for the system.

So, basically, it should read "If blah is patented, then it is banned". If so, then you can say bye to being able to read NTFS, to the double click, to all docks, and other patented things (there are others).

EDIT: also, no Java/Flash. Who knows, maybe even OpenJDK contains some code from proprietary Java which was relicensed.

[Grant A.]

So, basically, it should read "If blah is patented, then it is banned". If so, then you can say bye to being able to read NTFS, to the double click, to all docks, and other patented things (there are others).

EDIT: also, no Java/Flash. Who knows, maybe even OpenJDK contains some code from proprietary Java which was relicensed.

To my knowledge all that would stay due to the fact that reverse engineering is legal and wouldn't take much to replace that code with a Free version of the code. The main reason why Microsoft won't post it's patent-infringement portfolio.

[Delever]

To my knowledge all that would stay due to the fact that reverse engineering is legal and wouldn't take much to replace that code with a Free version of the code. The main reason why Microsoft won't post it's patent-infringement portfolio.

So there is no point for your line: first, linux kernel is already copyrighted by hundreds of people, who are "already responsible" for their code, also, in case of trouble, that code can be changed.

[Grant A.]

So there is no point for your line: first, linux kernel is already copyrighted by hundreds of people, who are "already responsible" for their code, also, in case of trouble, that code can be changed.

Yes, but it cannot be changed quickly enough to avoid a lawsuit. IMHO Novell should have added another line in the deal with Microsoft saying that Microsoft would have to do an audit of the Linux kernel and post what needs to be replaced.