Ciaran O'Riordan

Authored Comments

> 3. Does the GPLv2 include a patent license?

Case laws suggests yes:

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

That would seem to apply to all software that gets sold. The judges don't mention whether it also applies to things that are given rather than sold, but that brings me to the second point: free software licences, and the GNU licences in particular, contain wording that seems to reinforce any such implied licence or even create another implied licence:

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents

Sections 6 and 7 say you have permission to use, modify, redistribute, etc. and they mention patents and they say you can't place extra requirements on the freedoms given. Those sections don't talk about giving "copyright permission", they talk about give "permission", so I don't see much room for a judge to accept that a distributor gave permission to use but intended to reserve the right to later call that use illegal.

I was just updating those two wiki pages this week so I'd love to hear if I'm missing something or if others have more decisions which support these theories.