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From: robert burrell donkin <robertburrelldonkin@blueyonder.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Is ASL2.0 not "GPL-compatible" ??
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:15:10 +0000
To: community@apache.org
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On 21 Dec 2004, at 19:52, Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 December 2004 00:02, Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:

<snip>

> Furthermore, it was explained to me that the patent right disclaimers 
> in the
> ASL2.0 can be circumvented in nasty ways by a truly malicious
> company/individual if that is the intent, SO the GPL compatibility had 
> higher
> value than the patent right issue.

in europe at least, it's very likely that this won't really matter.

by this time next year, software patent violations are most likely to 
be enforceable by criminal sanction. any company wanted to maliciously 
damage an open source project would only have to target individual 
european release managers using the most pliant european legal system 
(UK law, for example). i don't see any way in which the ASF could act 
to help release managers faced with the criminal law in europe and 
(against this particular patent threat) neither the GPL nor the ASL 
could offer any protection at all. IMO the chilling effect of only one 
open source release manager facing a long prison sentence together with 
total sequestration of assets would be tremendous.

happy christmas, one and all!

- robert


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