[gentoo-dev] Re: Guidance on distributed patented software

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 11:30 AM Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mon, 20 Sep 2021, Alec Warner wrote:
>
> > The devmanual discusses licensing as a core concept
> > (https://devmanual.gentoo.org/general-concepts/licenses/index.html)
> > but does not cover patents. My understanding is that we:
>
> >  - set RESTRICT=bindist when we are unable to redistribute binaries
> > (e.g. due to a license or patent restriction.)
> >  - set RESTRICT=mirror when we are unable to redistribute source code
> > (e.g. due to a license of patent restriction.)
>
> IANAL, but IIUC patents only apply to programs that can run on a
> computer. This is the case for binaries but not for source code.
>
> In other words, we don't need mirror restriction for source tarballs
> because of patents.
>
> >  - Sometimes, we remove patent encumbered source code from packages
> > (e.g. with USE=bindist) so that we can build redistributable binaries
> > with the patented features removed.
>
> We do, but normally this doesn't prevent us from distributing the source
> code.

Great, I'll send a patch to devmanual to add details about how we
treat patented software in Gentoo (the original goal of the thread; I
don't care what happens to openssl as much ;p)

-A

>
> > Could we add some text to the license concepts covering patents? It
> > seems to have been omitted?
> > Is my understanding of how we manage patented software correct?