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SubjectRe: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux
On Sun, 20 Dec 1998, Alan Cox wrote:

> > The problem: if IBM supplies 24x7 support for Linux, they will want
> > to tweak the code to help their customers. No problem, and it falls
> > under the GPL of course. What if IBM uses an IBM patent? It would be
> > very bad (from their point of view) if that somehow gave everyone
> > rights to the patent.
>
> That I can understand. I'm still of the opinion all the abusers of software
> patents in the US ought to be nailed to trees but I can see the sanity of
> making the GPL require the patent is granted to GPL'd software only. That
> protects its value in the legacy (grin) proprietary software market. That
> doesn't seem too unreasonble an idea.

Kinda like the QPL applied to patents:

"We've contributed some code to Linux which uses one of our patents. If you
want to use this code to write other GPL'ed code, go right ahead. If you
want to use this code in a non-Free product, you'll have to pay us!"

I'd like to think that would be acceptable to all parties.

> Alan

Alex.


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