[copyleft-next] copyleft-next patent commons?

Ben Cotton bcotton at funnelfiasco.com
Sat Feb 23 02:05:35 UTC 2013


On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 5:47 PM, Pamela Chestek <pchestek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> That strikes me as being somewhat vague.
>
> And that's a bad thing because ...?

It scares people off. First in the way that you describe, which I
agree is a GoodThing[tm]. What I'm concerned about is scaring off
people who are acting in good faith. I would expect (but have no way
to prove) that vague clauses that result in bad things happening are
more likely to prevent someone from adopting a covered work in the
first place than they are to prevent someone who was going to be a bad
actor anyway from acting badly.

Now that you've explained your intention and the law behind it, it's
not a concern for me personally. I would guess that my initial
reaction would be shared by a large number of people who are also
ignorant of this area of law. If even "I'll have to look into that" in
response to a question about patents could result in the loss of use
of the software, I'd prefer to reinvent the wheel.

If there's a good way to scare off the bad actors while making it
clear to good actors that they're okay, I'm all for this.

-- 
Ben Cotton


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