More on GPL-compliant patent settlement
by T. Colin Dodd
Red Hat News | A Reader’s Guide to the Firestar Settlement
The free and open source software community is a spirited, independent-minded group of people who think for themselves. It is not surprising, therefore, that there have been numerous questions about the agreement and requests to make it publicly available. In the spirit of freedom and openness, we are happy to make the agreement public today here. We hope it will be a useful tool both in addressing existing legal threats and also in suggesting methods for addressing threats as yet unknown.
The agreement is, of course, a legal document. Some of the language is routine legal terminology, and some concerns the parties to the case and is of no general interest. On the other hand, the agreement has some important ideas expressed in terminology that may be unfamiliar to the non-lawyer reader, and so some explanation may be useful. Here are some pointers on where to find the juicy parts and how to figure out what they mean. To state the obvious, this is not intended as legal advice and should not be relied on as such.
