Sometimes security-related concepts pop up in a non-security context. Legalese has a lot in common with code (particularly if you consider the perspective of Lawrence Lessig), so it’s fun to watch people try to find loopholes like this one:
It got little notice at the time, but Richard Stallman, the leader of the FSF (Free Software Foundation), said at the fifth international GPLv3 conference in Tokyo on Nov. 21 that the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement is not in violation of the GPL version 2.
Stallman, the primary author of the GNU General Public License (GPL), said, according to a transcript published by the FSF Europe,
What has happened is, Microsoft has not given Novell a patent license, and thus, section 7 of GPL version 2 does not come into play. Instead, Microsoft offered a patent license that is rather limited to Novell’s customers alone.
Stalman is a programmer, and one of the best in the business drafted the language for the agreement.
Producing secure software, like producing bulletproof licenses, is a negative deliverable. It’s hard by definition.