On 03/18/2015 06:46 PM, Jon Masters wrote: > Just a sidenote, that this is a data structure, not code. There are > plenty of other specifications and standards that the kernel uses that > are licensed under a variety of terms. The specific issue seems to be > the potential for conflict over the patent language in that document as > possibly pertaining to implementations, not the specific license of the > document per se. I'll ping a few and get a conversation going. Strictly speaking, only the patent claim(s) are relevant. Either, a. your code infringes on the claim(s), in which case, the specific license from Microsoft is required, or b. your code does not infringe, in which case, no license is necessary. In case (a), all of my previous email applies; ie., the terms of the license should be GPL v2 compatible. In case (b), there is no actual problem. Yes, the patent notice in the specification is a barrier, and it would be helpful to your cause if Microsoft cited the patent numbers, but you could also just explain these in your cover letter at submission time. Regards, Peter Hurley -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html