[odf-discuss] ODF adoption considered in Oregon

[Alex Hudson]

Thomas Zander wrote:
> Since a license (which stands on the copyright laws) is always a legal 
> restriction and often imposes restrictions that in some manner can be called 
> technical (like not being able to use GPL in proprietary code and sell that).
>   

Usually, a free software license doesn't actually restrict anything - 
for a license to be able to restrict things which weren't already 
restricted by copyright law would mean that the license would need to 
become a proper contract, I think. Licenses like the GPL simply say, 
"You can treat this as your permission to do <certain acts like running, 
copying software> so long as you obey these rules" - you don't have to 
obey the rules, but then the GPL can't be your defence when the author 
sues you for copyright infringement.

So, it would probably come down to whether or not the copyrights 
themselves were seen as a legal restriction: I suspect that they 
wouldn't, because the copyright of the standard doesn't apply to the 
implementation of the standard (generally speaking).

Marbux's point about Sun's Convenant not to Sue (they actually call it a 
Patent Non-Assertion Covenant; CNS is the MS version) is slightly 
trickier, though: patents aren't automatic, so gaining a patent which 
applies to a standard is much more obviously a legal restriction. In 
fact, you don't even need to sue Sun for it to kick in: threats to sue 
are enough, I think.

Cheers,

Alex.