On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 10:56 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote: > On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 10:37:55AM +0200, Linus Walleij wrote: > > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Axel Thimm wrote: > > > > >I would ask the patent holders if they can explicitely allow Fedora > > >redistribution of vtk if it is deemed a viable modus by fedora > > >(legal?). > > > > Which license is vtk under? If it is BSD-like I understand the issue, but > > if it's (L)GPL the license text says it implies that the authors give a > > royalty-free license of their own patents for anyone using the code under > > the (L)GPL, and this is actually quite common I think, and then there is > > no issue, we (all (L)GPL software) already have a license for the patents. > > Unfortunately it's BSD like. I wasn't aware of this kind of difference > between the licenses, thanks for clarifying. > > Still the issue remains: The authors have hold of the patents and > fedora extras would need special permission. I fail to understand this issue - I don't see how them holding patents matters at all: The authors are selling a product and grant their product's users certain rights to use their product (aka. "License"). I my understanding, this license also means _them_ granting _their_ users certain rights to use _their_ intellectual property as part of their works. Wrt. to this, I don't see how a patented algorithm would be any different from copyright. Ralf -- fedora-extras-list mailing list fedora-extras-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-extras-list
