GeekPAC

As I posted on 4/12, AB 1668 was amended on 4/11. The meat of the change was Section 1(a)(3), which you can see highlighted in this post. After asking around, I got some very reassuring news from people that would know:

From Andy Updegrove (I asked him about the definition of “intellectual property restrictions”):

1. What they’re referring to is what’s called a “defensive suspension” rule, which is extremely common in standards, and also compatible with a “RAND” (reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing commitment by a patent owner.

2. Such a term might be problematic under some open source licenses.

3. However, Microsoft has already made a public patent non-assertion covenant blanketing OOXML. It’s hard for me to imagine that they would retreat from that now, so whatever the CA law says would be irrelevant to Microsoft’s case, if the MS pledge is otherwise OK by open source terms. So far, it has seemed that the community has been OK with that covenant.

So in this case, it doesn’t seem to me as if this is a case of Microsoft being up to no good - unless it relates to GPL3 V3 and Novell.

I pressed him on #2, and he said:

On the open source friendly question, let’s make sure we’re looking through the right end of the telescope. The fact that the statute would allow terms that are incompatible with an OSS license doesn’t meant that it prohibits OSS software - just that it would permit non-OSS software as well. The point of my comment, vis-a-vis Microsoft, is that it wouldn’t benefit MS to have lobbied for this change, since they have already bound themselves by tighter terms. Hence, the impetus for the change would more likely have come from other proprietary vendors instead.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. I like the fact that the definition of “open” in this case specifically allows for proprietary implementations - it obviates the argument that many opponents use about how laws mandating open standards are effectively mandates for open source - not so.

Never satisfied with just one explanation, I turned next to Eben Moglen:

Updegrove is right. There is no GPLv3 aspect to that incorporation of defensive suspension so far as I can see.

So, there you have it. While I wasn’t too concerned, I always get nervous when changes are made to legislation right before a hearing or vote.