Hi all, We've finally got an answer about the intellectual property issues surrounding the WS-BPEL specification. And it's pretty good news! Cliff Schmidt has posted it on legal-discuss. As everybody probably isn't subscribed to this mailing list, I'm pasting his reply here:
- None of the published licenses on the OASIS BPEL IPR page would be acceptable to the ASF. Some of the licenses have several issues; but one example is that they do not allow us to sublicense the rights to our users, nor do they allow our downstream users to become licensees without contacting the patent owner and signing a contract. There are other issues, but that's the easiest to describe right now. - However, it does not appear that any of the statements claim any *issued* patents that we would need to license. IBM lists three patent applications (each in various intl jurisdictions); they have not updated the statement to say anything is issued and after doing a quick check of the various patent application databases, I don't believe any of them have. - If any of these companies (or anyone else in the world) was to inform the ASF that they now had an issued patent that they would license only under such terms as posted on the OASIS site, we would (if we believe the patent to be valid, infringed, and enforceable) have to either a) invent around the patent, b) shut down the project, or c) convince the company to offer us more acceptable terms. - Until that time, I see no reason why ODE should not be able to continue its usual development. However, prior to a release, I would suggest that the project send an email to each company that claims to have an essential patent pending (e.g. not BEA) and simply inform them that we are unaware of any issued patent in this space and are therefore continuing to make and distribute implementations of the specs. I've already sent an email to Microsoft about these specs, asking them if they will include the spec under the OSP (http:// www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx), which is acceptable to the ASF. Brief Historical Note: This looks similar to the WS-Security situation we had a year ago or so. No entity was claiming to have issued patents, although some claimed to have published and unpublished applications. The licenses offered for these potential patents were not acceptable to the ASF; but at that time, there was nothing to license. IIRC, we (Dims as WS PMC chair; Sam Ruby from the board; and me, as legal guy) decided (with advice from counsel) that we would not stop WS-Security from releasing, but that this indeed might have to be the case one day if someone came to us with an issued patent and a license that looked like what was published at the time. Since that time, Microsoft (one of the spec authors making an IPR statement on WS-Security) has introduced the OSP (based, in large part, on our input), which now covers (WS-Security). However, I don't believe we have seen any revised licenses or notifications of issued patents from anyone else. Cliff
