David Sugar wrote:
There are no legal uncertainties with respect to patents in GPL v3. You cannot assert them in code you license under it. There was ambiguities in GPL v2 in this respect which some companies liked. I prefer to deal with honest companies rather than those that are anti-social or might choose legal ambush later, so any that feel they cannot accept the greater legal certainty of GPL v3 in this respect are probably companies that I would not choose to have any kind of relationship with anyway ;).
If that is true, why are there some notes on the FSF web site trying to clarify what is not well stated about patents in GPL3 itself? You are fooling yourself if you think lawyers are generally comfortable with GPL3. I'm talking about lawyers who were perfectly happy with GPL2. I know of some cases where large companies have paid outsourced developers to contribute to open source projects, specifically so there are no possible legal ramifications related to their own patent portfolio. That's a really messed up licence. Steve