Patents and the open-source community

Posted Jun 5, 2016 11:49 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
In reply to: Patents and the open-source community by jcm
Parent article: Patents and the open-source community

Are "good folks" ones that offer works to others but who reserve the right to prevent those others from taking advantage of the promises made to them when receiving those works? Because that's what patents effectively do to copyright licences, and given the presence of patent-related clauses in other licences, it isn't just the FSF who has noticed.

There's also a train of thought that GPLv2 actually compels patent-holders to license their patents to recipients, too. So when companies like Nokia who offered patent-related promises around Linux did so, it probably wasn't corporate generosity on display: the highly-specific version information accompanying such promises should have given the game away there.