Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 27, 2022 19:38 UTC (Wed) by rjones (subscriber, #159862)
In reply to: Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code by martin.langhoff
Parent article: Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

> So on trademarks, we accept that a sw license doesn't license the trademark. With patents, it seems like an un-solved problem so far. The clause at issue seems harmless to me on plain reading – "this license licenses the software, and just that" which almost shouldn't need to be said, right?

Trademarks, patents, and copyrights get lumped together as "IP", but they really are entirely different bodies of law. There is no real connection between any of them. Might as well lump tort law in with patent and copyright law for all the sense it makes on a technical level.

A copyright license only covers copyright. There is no trademark or patent licenses implied in one, although a patent or trademark license may be implied in how it's distributed or the language in other places. Like if somebody puts GPLv2 code out on the internet and says "Hey, free to use, do whatever you want with it" in their press releases, then goes out and sues you for using it on patent grounds.. the court is unlikely to view that favorably. (That doesn't mean they will have no chance of winning, though.)

The whole thing is a mess. Software patents (or business patents, etc) should of never existed. None of it should of ever existed. Just the result of clever lawyers and dumb judges working for massive corporations in order to screw over anybody that might want to compete with them.