Re: RFC3979bis section 7 -- hierarchy of preference for licensing

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hiya,

On 08/13/2013 10:03 PM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> Steve,
> Please see inline.
> Stephan
> 
> 
> On 8.13.2013 13:02 , "Stephen Farrell" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> On 08/13/2013 06:23 PM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>>> On 8/13/13 11:05 AM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
>>>> Barry,
>>>> Your formulation is certainly more accessible.  I'm fine with it.
>>>
>>> Agreed.
>>>
>>> Formatting aside, is that hierarchy of options complete and accurate? It
>>> looks fine to me and consistent with our "running code" in these
>>> matters. I wonder: do we need to specify a bit more what we mean by
>>> "open-source-friendly non-assert terms"?
>>
>> Overall this is a good change IMO, thanks Stephan.
>> I prefer Barry's formulation.
>>
>> I think we should ask some folks who care a lot about OSS, IPR and
>> licensing to see what they think at some point since it'd be a real
>> shame to make this change but then discover that some important OSS
>> group find it objectionable. (I do however agree with Stephan's
>> approach of not going into too much detail in case we accidentally
>> prefer one OSS camp over another.)
> 
> Feel free :-)
> 
> (Let me note that I ran my idea, before posting, against two colleagues
> who have some experience in the field, but prefer not to be named.
> Neither of them had a concern.)

Good to hear. I'm sure it'd happen as part of IETF LC anyway,
but sooner is better.

> 
>>
>> One other comment, I'd add a 2.5 to Barry's list:
>>
>> - 2.5. same-as-2 but with mutually assured destruction (MAD).
>>
>> Someone would have to figure out how to phrase that but there're
>> plenty of examples (e.g. most or all Cisco declarations) where
>> you lose the right to an RF license if you sue the IPR declarer
>> over your claimed IPR.
> 
> MAD sounds scary.  

Sorry, its a slang-term I've heard used for these. Not sure
how widely its used.

> But a patent lawsuit hardly falls under the category of
> "destruction".  Even small companies get occasionally sued over patents,
> without going down.  Big ones get sued every other week or so.  It's not
> the end of the world.  Moderately scary sometimes, and surely annoying,
> but not necessarily (not even frequently, in my personal experience)
> destructive.
> 
> 2.5 would be called something like "open-source friendly non-assert terms
> with reciprocity condition."
> 
> I have yet to see a non-assert covenant anywhere (inside or outside the
> IETF) that does not include a reciprocity clause (termination of promise
> not to sue in case of litigation or, in some cases, assertion of a patent
> against the rightholder, or his friends, or his customers, or another user
> of the standard, ...).  AFAIR, all IETF disclosures with non-assert terms
> would fall under 2.5 according to your definition.  And, while we are at
> it, I have yet to see a license agreement under RAND or RAND-Z that does
> not include reciprocity conditions.  Therefore, let me suggest it would be
> an unnecessary add of word count and confusion if we were adding 2.5 (and
> corresponding 3.5, 4.5, etc.).

I do think I've seen declarations without reciprocity, though yes
they're perhaps getting very scarce these days.

Nonetheless reciprocity is problematic for some OSS folks I believe.
I think the issue was if a user of the OSS s/w sues the IPR holder
then was it ok for the developer to write that OSS in the first
place? (I might have gotten that wrong though.)

However, I don't really mind too much about this part - the main good
thing here IMO is reflecting the reality that we do prefer our work
to be usable in OSS (for those things where that makes sense, which
is most things).

S.

> 
> 
> 
>>
>> S.
>>
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
> 
> 
>