[Foundation-l] Google Wave and Wikimedia projects

Mon Jun 1 21:34:59 UTC 2009

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> The mention of a "patent license" should make us worried.  Does
> Google, for example, have a patent on the animated playback?
> Should we need a patent for "flagged revisions" to counter that?
>
>

Their patent license is basically just saying that *if* google has any
patents, you are free to use them, and google will not sue you, so
that other big companies and organizations implement this without
taking forever to worry about google suing them.

http://www.waveprotocol.org/patent-license

"Google and its affiliates hereby grant to you a perpetual, worldwide,
non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated
in this License) patent license for patents necessarily infringed by
implementation of this specification."

The revocation happens if you sue someone else for patent
infringement, it's really pretty positive, actually.

Judson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion