Re: Now this is an ipr license I like..

Pekka Savola <pekkas <at> netcore.fi> writes:

> On Thu, 3 Apr 2008, Fred Baker wrote:
>> How does that differ from an RFC 1988 license, or the kinds of licenses 
>> currently described in the IPR WG?
>
> In a number of fundamental ways, such as:
>   - RFC1988 grant applies only to the specific IETF standards track 
> activity (the license specifically restricts incorporating the work in 
> proprietary modules)
>   - RFC1988 license terminates only if someone asserts against HP, 
> instead of asserts against anyone
>   - The scope of required reciprocity is wider than the specification 
> in question ("search address technology") which may allow HP to abuse 
> the license by using some other organizations restricted IPR in the 
> area of 'search address technology', daring them to sue.

Further:
 - RFC1988 grants rights to specific patents, which in general may not
have been all the patents related that particular technology owned by
the patent holder.

I brought up for discussion whether Google's patent license may be free
software compatible on the FSF Europe discussion list, see
<http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2008-April/thread.html>.
If it doesn't seem entirely unacceptable, I'll mention it in
draft-josefsson-free-standards-howto as one example of a patent license
that companies can use if they want to make their IETF standard free
software compatible.

/Simon