Question regarding GPL and membership requirements for a standards body

[Thomas Charron]

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:48 AM, Clemens Ladisch<clemens at ladisch.de> wrote:
> Akiba wrote:
>> I'm running an open source project to implement the Zigbee Protocol stack.
>> The code is currently protected by the GPL, however there's been a challenge
>> to the validity of the license. The problem comes from the fact that the
>> Zigbee Alliance requires membership in order to use its spec for commercial
>> projects. Although my code is license free, it's claimed that the membership
>> requirement is a licensing fee.
> Only for somebody who wants to read the specification.  As far as I can
> tell from the part quoted in your blog post, there is no restriction on
> releasing developed code to (commercial) third parties who do not use
> the specification document.
>
> On other words, the membership requirement does not affect the _code_.

  The key trick really is, the protocol is covered by IP.  The
document gives you a free license to the IP, if you are a non
commercial entity, or a memory of the alliance.

  The best people to ask is the alliance themselves.  It's their IP.
This isn't a code licensing issue, unless, of course, you release it
under the gpl3.

-- 
-- Thomas