On 2026-02-03 15:40:58 -0800 (-0800), Russ Allbery wrote: [...]
This is a really good point. I did not think about patent licenses, but indeed those are a completely different problem with different tradeoffs.
And to be clear, this isn't a niche challenge. There are, for example, patent clauses in Apache Software License v2 and GNU Public License v3, extremely popular choices on both sides of the permissive vs copyleft aisles.
For example, I suspect one of the most common failure modes, legally, of the standard community assumption about free software licensing is when someone submits a patch on employer time without getting explicit permission from their employer to release the work as free software. Depending on local laws, work contracts, etc., that patch may be owned by their employer under work-for-hire laws and the person submitting it may have no legal right to agree to anything regarding it.
[...]Right, this is precisely why (from what I understand) Apache Software Foundation counsel had them impose a CLA on participants in their projects, and subsequent non-ASF projects reusing their license followed suit. Inbound=outbound is a fairly comfortable assumption when it comes to copyright, but patent grants are an entirely different kettle of fish.
-- Jeremy Stanley
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