Mono apps in extras

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 17:26 +0100, Linus Walleij wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> > There is a substantial difference: None of us has control over Core, but
> > anybody being actively involved into FE, packaging packages for FE or
> > using such packages could potentially be subject to legal action.
> 
> Anyone could *perhaps* commit an offense in the United States and their 
> friends in North America. I assume you are Germany-based Ralf,
Yes, I am.

>  so software 
> patents, as you know, were turned down by the European parliament.
I know, but ... you and I have signed a bilateral contract called CLA
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses/CLA) with a US-based
enterprise called RH. This could be interpreted as "contributions are
subject to US law and US courts."

Part of this contract is this paragraph:
...
2. Contributor Grant of License. You hereby grant to Red Hat, Inc., on
behalf of the Project, and to recipients of software distributed by the
Project: 
[...]
(b) a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free,
irrevocable (subject to Section 3) patent license to make, have made,
use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer your
Contribution and derivative works thereof, where such license applies
only to those patent claims licensable by you that are necessarily
infringed by your Contribution alone or by combination of your
Contribution with the work to which you submitted the Contribution.
...

Now, think about this legalize.

>  That 
> doesn't mean you might do something in the States that is not so good with 
> them, but then they have to get you first ... better cancel all trips to 
> US from the moment I commit some patent infringement.
That's what scares me - Also, can you exclude that a US based entity
won't try to legally threaten you ("Pay USD1000 or we will sue you in
front of a US court)? 

AFAIK, this already had happened on other occasions.

>  (I might have 
> already done that when I approved WINE, life sucks.)
Guess why I didn't ;)

> I really think they will go after the Fedora foundation before they go 
> after you.
I can only hope it will happen this way -- should it happen. 

I'd expect "big ones" will go after the "big ones", but the "twilight
law-firm" will try to go after the weakest link - In first place, this
would be the user, in second place it would be the maintainer.

Ralf