Talk:Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing

Parts of this article are Copy&Paste
This text shares a paragraph or two with page 11 of this document &mdash; except that the paper in the link admits to its FOSS bias.


 * As the article was rather one-sided on the topic of patents i just stripped much of those bias and instead concentrated the contents more on the licensing aspects including the problems that RAND still might represent. I hope this improved the overall situation. --Alexander.stohr 13:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Article Dispute
There is a dispute marker on the article. It mainly tells about that there are not enough sources for founding the provided statements. This might be the case - but i dont see much point to mark this to the reader when no one really objects here on the details presented by the article. --Alexander.stohr 13:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Not really in conflict with free software
The section about RAND being in conflict with free software is not really accurate. RAND is not a license, but rather a set of conditions a license must meet. Nearly all free software licenses meet the conditions of RAND. A better way to discuss the relationship of RAND to free software would be to say that to be a free software license, a license has to meet more stringent conditions than it does to be a RAND license. Thus, if a standards body only requires that things be under a RAND license, they might or might not also be under a free software license, whereas anything under a free software license would also qualify as a RAND license. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tim.the.bastard (talk • contribs) 17:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

No one has said anything about the above, so I'm making the change. Tim.the.bastard (talk) 07:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Article reads more like an opinion tract or essay. 71.134.252.36 (talk) 03:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Tuxcantfly, free software licenses are RAND licenses, so it is not possible for RAND to be inherently in conflict with free software. The problem with RAND from a free software point of view is that to satisfy RAND, you only have to meet a subset of the requirements for free software, so that a standards body only requiring RAND means that there could be standards that cannot be implemented in free software.Tim.the.bastard (talk) 17:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

According to the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), free software licenses are incompatible with (F)RAND terms. Because of the ambiguity (in English, anyway) between free-as-in-price and free-as-in-rights, the FSFE and other organizations advocate the term "Libre Software" to refer to free-as-in-rights software. (F)RAND rules are compatible with free-as-in-price software licensing, but not compatible with free-as-in-rights software, or "Libre Software," licensing.Clayfoot (talk) 12:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
After reading the RAND and FRAND articles, I have a reasonable understanding of what they say about (F)RAND (mostly the same, but expressed differently), but I have no idea what the difference in practice between FRAND and RAND is, or which organizations use FRAND and which use RAND. Therefore, I suggest that the articles be merged. --Alvestrand (talk) 06:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no meaningful distinction between RAND and FRAND either in theory or practice, so I agree that the articles should be merged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.176.191.54 (talk) 06:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Every reference I can find cites FRAND as the EU term and RAND as the USA term, and uses them interchangeably. Unless someone can a meaningful difference in definition or usage, the two articles should be merged.Clayfoot (talk) 14:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I just completed doing the merge and cleaning up any double redirects. The result is mostly based on the FRAND version, though I preserved all referenced details from RAND as well as its external and interlanguage links.  67.101.6.158 (talk) 00:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Edcolins (talk) 09:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Article needs more support
Nobody really knows what "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" mean, and courts have not opined on the matter, so it is inaccurate to simply define them, particularly on the basis of one paper. Instead, the article should cite to many sources in order to report where there is some certainty and what the consensus is regarding any uncertainties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.197.243.249 (talk) 19:36, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A lot of people use it on a daily basis, so it has acquired a meaning through usage. Defining it is an area where lawyers fear to tread; look at, for instance, RFC 2026 section 10.3.3 for an attempt at not defining the term. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Link is no langer available
http://standardslaw.com/?p=36 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.94.40.146 (talk) 16:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge from Essential patent?
Should Essential patent be merged into this article? I have left a comment to that effect on talk:Essential patent. PeterEastern (talk) 18:33, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Phrasing may need tightening?
The opening paragraph contains "... is a voluntary agreement ...". Does this mean the agreement was freely entered into or does it mean the agreement is optional for parties taking up the standard? The intended message is not clear to me at least. With best wishes. 13:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)