copyleft-next June 2021

copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org

6 participants
3 discussions

OSI submission
by Richard Fontana 25 May '22

25 May '22

Does anyone have an opinion on whether copyleft-next (presumably the most recent numbered release) should be submitted for OSI approval? I had given a little thought to the idea in the past, but while I was on the OSI board (2013-2019) I considered it to be inappropriate. Richard

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Termination strictness and patent poison pills
by Bradley M. Kuhn 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

On a CHR😩-governed mailing list, there is a thread regarding Termination provisions in GPLv3. One of the points I've made on that thread there is that, frankly, the industry obsession with extending termination provisions as if its a panacea reflects the dueal widespread misunderstandings that (a) most copyleft violations are due to innocent mistakes that companies want to repair and (b) that so-called “copyright trolls” are common for copylefted works (when they are, in fact, exceedingly rare). This may be neither here nor there, but it lead me to look again at what the Termination provision of copyleft-next. I see that it hasn't changed much since the original 2012 drafts. Most notably, I see it still contains a patent infringement litigation poison pill: > b. Initiate a patent infringement litigation claim (excluding > counterclaims and cross-claims) alleging that all or part of My > Work directly or indirectly infringes a patent. Upon reading this, I wonder if this is really necessary? I remember when I first read it back in 2012, I thought “oh, great use of a patent poison pill”, but now I'm dubious. The reason I'm now dubious about it is that patents are even more weaponized and more consolidated than they were previously. Frankly, I'm am just *not* sympathetic to a litigation between two patent holders, which is the most likely use of this clause. Specifically, it's a case like this: Company Foo sues Company Bar for patent infringement. Company Bar exercises this clause, terminates rights, and then immediately sues a counterclaim. Foo has no rights under copyleft-next, but Bar retains their rights. But what about declaratory judgment lawsuits? What about situations where Bar was actually the patent aggressor out-of-court and Foo preemptively acted? (I was recently reading that something like this happened in the real world.) So, in summary, I think a smart patent aggressor can manipulate the situation and find themselves being the one in the cross-claim/counterclaim situation. So, upon consideration, I think we should cut the patent poison pill entirely. This has the upside of making the license shorter by 3 lines / 180 chars / 25 words. Can we discuss? -- Bradley M. Kuhn - he/him Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/

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HBR cure (3 February 2020)
by Richard Fontana 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

I had some informal discussions relating to copyleft-next in Brussels around the time of FOSDEM, potentially triggering the need for an HBR cure. For reference, the relevant part of HBR [0] says: "Except in extraordinary cases, private telephone calls, private teleconferences, private in-person meetings, and private email communications shall not be used to discuss *substantive* development of this project. Should such private communications nevertheless occur, participants in such communications are expected to publish summaries of any relevant discussions in a manner or medium accessible to the general net public." I can only really remember one discussion I'd consider possibly substantive, which took place in a noisy bar following CopyleftConf on Monday 3 February. This was a conversation with bkuhn and a few other individuals whose names unfortunately escape me or which I did not know to begin with. This was basically a continuation of the discussion bkuhn had started some time ago on this mailing list, pointing out some potential flaws in the current implementation of what some are now calling a copyleft equality clause. I'm not sure any truly new ideas or problems were brought up in this conversation. Perhaps bkuhn or, if they are on this list, any of the other participants in this conversation can remember more. Richard [0] https://github.com/richardfontana/HBR/blob/master/HBR.md

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copyleft-next June 2021