Re: How can we submit code patches that implement our (pending) patents?

On 2018-07-23 11:06:25 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 07:59:20AM -0700, Andres Freund wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 2018-07-23 16:32:55 +0200, David Fetter wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 06:31:14AM -0700, Andres Freund wrote:
> > > > On July 23, 2018 6:25:42 AM PDT, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> > > > >Notice this makes no mention of what happens to the patents if the
> > > > >company goes bankrupt. My guess is that in such a situation the
> > > > >company
> > > > >would have no control over who buys the patents or how they are used.
> > > >
> > > > It explicitly says irrevocable and successors. Why seems squarely
> > > > aimed at your concern. Bankruptcy wouldn't just invalidate that.
> > >
> > > Until this has been upheld in court, it's just a vague idea.
> >
> > To my knowledge this has long been settled. Which makes a lot of sense,
> > because this is relevant *far* beyond just open source. FWIW, in the US
> > it's explicit law, see https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/365
> > subclause (n). Anyway, should we decide that this would be a good idea
> > as a policy matter, we'd *OBVIOUSLY* have to check in with lawyers to
> > see whether our understanding is correct. But that doesn't mean we
> > should just assume it's impossible without any sort of actual
> > understanding.
>
> You are saying that Red Hat's promise is part of the contract when they
> contributed that code --- I guess that interpretation is possible, but
> again, I am not sure.

I'm fairly sure that I'm right. But my point isn't that we should "trust
Andres implicitly ™" (although that's obviously not a bad starting point
;)). But rather, given that that is a reasonable assumption that such
agreements are legally possible, we can decide whether we want to take
advantage of such terms *assuming they are legally sound*. Then, if, and
only if, we decide that that's interesting from a policy POV, we can
verify those assumptions with lawyers.

Given we're far from the first project dealing with this, and that
companies that have shown themselves to be reasonably trustworthy around
open source, like Red Hat, assuming that such agreements are sound seems
quite reasonable.

I find it fairly hubristic to just assume bad faith, or lack of skill,
on part of the drafters of Apache2, GLPv3, RH patent promise, ... that
they either didn't think about bancruptcy or didn't care about
it. They're certainly better lawyers than any of us here.

Greetings,

Andres Freund