Working Toward a Patent-Agnostic Open Source License 124
Glyn Moody writes "Are there ever circumstances when software patents that require payment might be permitted by an open source license? That's the question posed by a new license that is being submitted to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) for review. The MPEG Working Group wants to release a reference implementation of the new MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM) standard as open source, but it also wants to be able to sell patent licenses. If it can't, it might not make the implementation open source; but if it does, it might undermine the fight against software patent proliferation."
Patent-Agnostic (Score:1, Funny)
I don't know whether I believe in imaginary property or not!
Re:Software patents. (Score:4, Funny)
If it happened in the library with a candle stick, you owe me money :)
No. Hell no. What kind of dope are you on? (Score:3, Funny)
Somewhere there are lawyers sitting around a bottle of scotch thinking up ways to use words for the exact opposite of what they mean. They are the Drunken Idiot Attorney Forum (DIAF) working group. Clearly this license is a draft version of their proposal for an international Patented Open Software (POS) standard to be pushed through the ISO fast track process next year despite the determined opposition of just about everybody involved.
Fortunately for all of us this endeavor violates at least three Microsoft business process patents.