Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Lawrence Rosen]

Ben Tilly wrote:
> Item 1 of the OSD says, "The license shall not restrict any party from 
> selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software 
> distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license 
> shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

 

Red Hat's trademark license fails this provision as badly as you could want.

 

No, it doesn't. Go ahead and aggregate Red Hat's open source software to your 
heart's content as OSD #1 permits. 

 

Just don't call your aggregation "RHEL", although you are authorized to say 
this:

 

"The open source components of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are also in this TILLY 
software. Those open source components are available to you for free as 
described in our NOTICE file accompanying this TILLY version."

 

/Larry

 

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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Ben Tilly]

Item 1 of the OSD says, "The license shall not restrict any party from
selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software
distribution containing programs from several different sources. The
license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

Red Hat's trademark license fails this provision as badly as you could want.

The issue is the same as the one that arose for Debian (whose free software
guidelines are the inspiration for the OSD) with regards to Mozilla
trademarks.  See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_software_rebranded_by_Debian for what
happened next.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. 
wrote:

> So Larry and Ben, is RHEL is not open source because you cannot
> redistribute RHEL without a trademark license from RedHat?
>
> If an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open source should an
> explicit trademark grant also be required?  Does CPAL provide an implicit
> permission to use trademark given the attribution requirement?
>
> From: License-discuss  on behalf
> of Ben Tilly 
> Reply-To: License Discuss 
> Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 6:04 PM
> To: License Discuss 
> Cc: "henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi" 
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?
>
> Looking at the open source definition, it should be able apply to any
> license of any kind.
>
> The argument is that the patent grant is not open source because the
> inability to continue using the software after suing Facebook for patent
> infringement is a "price".  However you are unable to use the software
> before receiving it, so you do not wind up worse off from having received
> it.  Therefore there is no real price to receiving it.
>
> After having received the program, there is clearly a price to violating
> the license.  But the same is true for any license.  For example look at
> the GPL v3.  If you distribute a GPL v3 program without appropriate
> copyright notices as required by clause 4, then your license can be
> terminated under clause 10, and you will lose the right to continue running
> the software as granted under clause 2.  This is an apparent "price" of the
> exact same form.
>
> Either this patent grant is open source, or no license can qualify.
>
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. 
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.i...@gmail.com on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
>>  wrote:
>>
>>
>> >The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
>> >an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
>> >file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
>> >as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
>> >from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
>> >file.
>>
>> In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
>> grant license?
>>
>> How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
>> external trademark license agreement?
>>
>> IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
>> for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.
>>
>> >I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
>> >commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
>> >licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.
>>
>> That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
>> grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.
>>
>> CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
>> perspective.
>>
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>>
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>
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Lawrence Rosen]

Nigel Tzeng wrote: 

So Larry and Ben, is RHEL is not open source because you cannot redistribute
RHEL without a trademark license from RedHat?

 

[] But you can redistribute RHEL if you don't modify it. If you modify
it, apply a different trademark to distinguish it in the marketplace. No
trademark license is needed. Trademarks are easy for open source in that
sense. If you don't like Firefox, use Iceweasel. 

 

If an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open source should an
explicit trademark grant also be required?  Does CPAL provide an implicit
permission to use trademark given the attribution requirement?

 

[] Set trademarks aside for now. Assume you won't get a trademark
license allowing you to apply someone else's trademark to your unique goods
or services.

 

I don't believe that an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open
source. On the other hand, I believe an explicit patent grant is important
to make software less risky to consumers. That is why I like the W3C form of
patent grant rather than the IETF mere disclosure of possible patents. Yet
both IETF and W3C standards are implemented in open source. 

 

I would not object if OSI made an explicit patent grant a new requirement
under the OSD. After all, it is a solid requirement at W3C. But there will
be objections

 

/Larry

 

 

From: License-discuss  > on behalf of Ben Tilly
 >
Reply-To: License Discuss  >
Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 6:04 PM
To: License Discuss  >
Cc: "henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi  "
 >
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

Looking at the open source definition, it should be able apply to any
license of any kind. 

 

The argument is that the patent grant is not open source because the
inability to continue using the software after suing Facebook for patent
infringement is a "price".  However you are unable to use the software
before receiving it, so you do not wind up worse off from having received
it.  Therefore there is no real price to receiving it.

 

After having received the program, there is clearly a price to violating the
license.  But the same is true for any license.  For example look at the GPL
v3.  If you distribute a GPL v3 program without appropriate copyright
notices as required by clause 4, then your license can be terminated under
clause 10, and you will lose the right to continue running the software as
granted under clause 2.  This is an apparent "price" of the exact same form.

 

Either this patent grant is open source, or no license can qualify.

 

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H.  > wrote:

On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.i...@gmail.com 
on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
  on behalf of
henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi  > wrote:


>The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
>an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
>file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
>as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
>from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
>file.

In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
grant license?

How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
external trademark license agreement?

IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.

>I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
>commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
>licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.

That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.

CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
perspective.


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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

So Larry and Ben, is RHEL is not open source because you cannot redistribute 
RHEL without a trademark license from RedHat?

If an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open source should an explicit 
trademark grant also be required?  Does CPAL provide an implicit permission to 
use trademark given the attribution requirement?

From: License-discuss 
>
 on behalf of Ben Tilly >
Reply-To: License Discuss 
>
Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 6:04 PM
To: License Discuss 
>
Cc: "henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi" 
>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

Looking at the open source definition, it should be able apply to any license 
of any kind.

The argument is that the patent grant is not open source because the inability 
to continue using the software after suing Facebook for patent infringement is 
a "price".  However you are unable to use the software before receiving it, so 
you do not wind up worse off from having received it.  Therefore there is no 
real price to receiving it.

After having received the program, there is clearly a price to violating the 
license.  But the same is true for any license.  For example look at the GPL 
v3.  If you distribute a GPL v3 program without appropriate copyright notices 
as required by clause 4, then your license can be terminated under clause 10, 
and you will lose the right to continue running the software as granted under 
clause 2.  This is an apparent "price" of the exact same form.

Either this patent grant is open source, or no license can qualify.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. 
> wrote:
On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.i...@gmail.com on 
behalf of Henrik Ingo"
 on behalf of 
henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi> wrote:


>The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
>an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
>file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
>as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
>from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
>file.

In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
grant license?

How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
external trademark license agreement?

IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.

>I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
>commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
>licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.

That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.

CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
perspective.

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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Ben Tilly]

Looking at the open source definition, it should be able apply to any
license of any kind.

The argument is that the patent grant is not open source because the
inability to continue using the software after suing Facebook for patent
infringement is a "price".  However you are unable to use the software
before receiving it, so you do not wind up worse off from having received
it.  Therefore there is no real price to receiving it.

After having received the program, there is clearly a price to violating
the license.  But the same is true for any license.  For example look at
the GPL v3.  If you distribute a GPL v3 program without appropriate
copyright notices as required by clause 4, then your license can be
terminated under clause 10, and you will lose the right to continue running
the software as granted under clause 2.  This is an apparent "price" of the
exact same form.

Either this patent grant is open source, or no license can qualify.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. 
wrote:

> On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.i...@gmail.com on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
>  wrote:
>
>
> >The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
> >an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
> >file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
> >as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
> >from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
> >file.
>
> In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
> grant license?
>
> How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
> external trademark license agreement?
>
> IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
> for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.
>
> >I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
> >commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
> >licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.
>
> That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
> grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.
>
> CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
> perspective.
>
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Lawrence Rosen]

OSD #7 has something to say about an "additional license" being needed for 
software:

 

7. Distribution of License

The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is 
redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those 
parties.

 

I assumed "the rights" referred to here are only "copyright rights." Before OSI 
approved a license in the old days, some government agencies and universities 
complained because they had other, more complicated, patent rights to 
distribute that might require or engage "additional" non-copyright licenses. At 
that time, nobody insisted that an open source license also include patent 
rights.  

 

We never fully thought that through, which is why we are still talking about 
this problem for government and university software years later!

 

As a customer, I personally would prefer an explicit patent license within my 
open source copyright license. I like Apache's patent provision for that 
reason. I would like governments and universities to patent things only on the 
assumption that both copyright and patent rights will explicitly be licensed 
under a single OSI-approved license so that the software can be useful as well 
as open.

 

Am I reading this OSD #7 correctly? Would the dear departed Antonin Scalia have 
considered this the "original intent" of the authors of that one-sentence OSD 
#7 provision?

 

/Larry

 

 

 

-Original Message-
From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-boun...@opensource.org] On Behalf 
Of Tzeng, Nigel H.
Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 1:01 PM
To: henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi
Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

 

On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, " 
 
henrik.i...@gmail.com on behalf of Henrik Ingo"

<  
henrik.i...@gmail.com on behalf of henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi> wrote:

 

 

>The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that 

>taking an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a 

>separate file with additional terms and conditions, results in a 

>combination which as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. 

>It is no different from taking the BSD license and making additions to 

>it within the same file.

 

In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent grant 
license?

 

How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an external 
trademark license agreement?

 

IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope for 
OSI license approval for copyright licenses.

 

>I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as 

>commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t 

>licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.

 

That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow 
grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.

 

CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license 

CC0->approval

perspective.

 

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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.i...@gmail.com on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
 wrote:


>The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
>an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
>file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
>as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
>from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
>file.

In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
grant license?

How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
external trademark license agreement?

IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.

>I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
>commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
>licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.

That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.

CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
perspective.

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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Henrik Ingo 
wrote:

Especially in this case, where it is debatable whether the patent
> grant adds or removes rights compared to plain BSD.
>

Inevitably so, since the BSD license family either grants no patent rights
(if you read it literally) or grants all rights (if you interpret the magic
word "use" as referring to patents).

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
One of the oil men in heaven started a rumor of a gusher down in hell.  All
the other oil men left in a hurry for hell.  As he gets to thinking about
the rumor he had started he says to himself there might be something in
it after all.  So he leaves for hell in a hurry.--Carl Sandburg
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Henrik Ingo]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 8:28 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H.  wrote:
> On 12/5/16, 6:55 AM, "License-discuss on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
>  henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi> wrote:
>>On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 6:26 AM, Richard Fontana 
>>wrote:
>>> - is it good practice, and does it affect the open source status of
>>>   software, to supplement OSI-approved licenses with separate patent
>>>   license grants or nonasserts? (This has been done by some other
>>>   companies without significant controversy.)
>>
>>This should of course be discouraged. However, I sympathize with this
>>kind of setup if it is intended to be a proposal for a license that
>>doesn't yet exist. If Facebook a) intends for the combined license to
>>qualify as open source, and b) eventually submit it for OSI approval,
>>then it seems to me this is a natural path towards such a goal.
>
> React is BSD and therefore already open source.
>
> As far as I can tell the OSD doesn¹t explicitly address patents.
> Heartache with CC0 wasn¹t based on compliance with the OSD.  Any concerns
> with React likewise.

The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that
taking an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a
separate file with additional terms and conditions, results in a
combination which as a whole is not OSI approved open source license.
It is no different from taking the BSD license and making additions to
it within the same file.

Especially in this case, where it is debatable whether the patent
grant adds or removes rights compared to plain BSD. (I appreciate the
patent grant precisely tries to clarify that uncertainty, but even
then the practice of making additions to open source licenses should
be discouraged, and is only ok if the intent is to submit the new
whole as a new license for OSI certification.)

>>> - should Facebook be encouraged to seek OSI approval for the React
>>>   license including the patent license grant?
>>
>>Yes. As far as I can see, the BSD + additional stuff should be a
>>single file and single license, and OSI approved.
>
> Why not just use Apache?  Because Facebook wants a competitive advantage.
> I don¹t see how Facebook is any more trustworthy than any other
> corporation nor do I see any difference between Oracle, Facebook, Google
> or Microsoft that isn¹t a CEO change away.  Sun was very pro-open source
> until it went out of business and was acquired by Oracle.
>
> Patent truces favor the big guys and have zero impact on patent trolls.  I
> see little need to "allow terms where those companies actually
> contributing open source software have an equal or even stronger position
> in patent suits² because the level of contributions changes over time,
> sometimes rather quickly.
>

The React license, when used as a generally approved open source
license, of course wouldn't be written in a way where Facebook gets a
competitive advantage. It would be written in a way where whoever
publishes open source - especially useful and popular open source -
would get the same competitive advantage. In particular, small guys
can enjoy the competitive advantage by making their own small
contributions to the React ecosystem (or any other software project
adopting same license).

Also, since the React license does allow recipients to do counter
suits in your hypothetical case where FB has turned into a patent
aggressor, I just don't see the merits of your argument at all.


> I believe that license terms should be non-discriminatory and range from
> more business-friendly terms to more commons-friendly terms so there is a
> wide range of applicable open source license for all business cases.

I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren't
licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this
one.

henrik




-- 
henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi
+358-40-5697354skype: henrik.ingoirc: hingo
www.openlife.cc

My LinkedIn profile: http://fi.linkedin.com/pub/henrik-ingo/3/232/8a7
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

On 12/5/16, 6:55 AM, "License-discuss on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
 wrote:


>On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 6:26 AM, Richard Fontana 
>wrote:
>> - is it good practice, and does it affect the open source status of
>>   software, to supplement OSI-approved licenses with separate patent
>>   license grants or nonasserts? (This has been done by some other
>>   companies without significant controversy.)
>
>This should of course be discouraged. However, I sympathize with this
>kind of setup if it is intended to be a proposal for a license that
>doesn't yet exist. If Facebook a) intends for the combined license to
>qualify as open source, and b) eventually submit it for OSI approval,
>then it seems to me this is a natural path towards such a goal.

React is BSD and therefore already open source.

As far as I can tell the OSD doesn¹t explicitly address patents.
Heartache with CC0 wasn¹t based on compliance with the OSD.  Any concerns
with React likewise.

>> - should Facebook be encouraged to seek OSI approval for the React
>>   license including the patent license grant?
>
>Yes. As far as I can see, the BSD + additional stuff should be a
>single file and single license, and OSI approved.

Why not just use Apache?  Because Facebook wants a competitive advantage.
I don¹t see how Facebook is any more trustworthy than any other
corporation nor do I see any difference between Oracle, Facebook, Google
or Microsoft that isn¹t a CEO change away.  Sun was very pro-open source
until it went out of business and was acquired by Oracle.

Patent truces favor the big guys and have zero impact on patent trolls.  I
see little need to "allow terms where those companies actually
contributing open source software have an equal or even stronger position
in patent suits² because the level of contributions changes over time,
sometimes rather quickly.

I believe that license terms should be non-discriminatory and range from
more business-friendly terms to more commons-friendly terms so there is a
wide range of applicable open source license for all business cases.

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