Daniel Stenberg wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------

> They're worried that code contained within libcurl might either
> violate someone else's patent or copyright, and that there
> is a risk that we might thus get sued as a result of using this
> library. Unfortunately, I really don't know what to say to this.

I have never seen this issue raised before. It may be interesting
to hear what the people on netscape.public.mozilla.license and
gnu.misc.discuss (the issue also applies to selling GNU software)
newsgroups has to say.

I believe the lawyers have a valid point. The disclaimer of the
Mozilla Public License explictly disclaims any warranties about
non-infringement, so the responsibility rests with the company
(or person) that uses the code in a product.

> Do you have any ideas on how to counter such an argument? Are there
> other commercial products that use cURL?

The same scenario applies to embedding the Gecko engine from the
Mozilla project into an application. Several major companies [1],
do this, and more are in the process of doing so. It seems (although
I have no idea what legal advice they have received) like the
benefits of using the Open Source code has outweighted the legal
concerns with respect to infringement of third-party claims.

[1] http://home.netscape.com/browsers/gecko/partners.html
Received on 2000-05-03