Re: [License-discuss] Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy
Hen, An important part of the proposed Apache Third Party License Policy is that we finally leave the sad domain of FOSS license compatibility determination to our friends and experts at OSI. If we have a question about whether a specific FOSS license infects Apache code, ask OSI at license-discuss@opensource.org mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org . That's not ASF's expertise. Our PMCs and certainly our board of directors are not qualified to maintain complex A, B and X lists of FOSS licenses and exceptions. And so in open source, different organizations can play their own important roles in our ecosystem. All this without turning one FOSS developer against another FOSS developer here at Apache merely because of their choice of wonderful FOSS license. /Larry From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bay...@apache.org] Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 11:12 AM To: ASF Legal Discuss; Lawrence Rosen Subject: Re: Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy Your original proposal was (quoting the heart of it; for any readers not familiar refer back to the whole email): Proposal: Apache projects may accept contributions under ANY OSI-approved open source license. Such software may now be included in Apache aggregations that, as described above, will be licensed to the public under Apache License 2.0. An exception has evolved through the course of these threads, namely that GPL/AGPL versions are an exception to that and not covered. That also means a policy cannot approve 'ANY' as it's unknown what the next licence on the list would be. At this point the conversation is: a) Removal of particular licenses on the 'cannot be used' list that are on the OSI list. I think that's LGPL, QPL and Sleepycat licences. I don't think either of the latter are used on software today, so I don't see a need to do that. There are other licences on the OSI list that we don't have covered, so it's possible there are some we would consider on the 'cannot be used' list. This should become a thread on moving LGPL licences to either the 'weak copyleft - binary only' or 'can be used' list. The former makes more sense. b) Moving the 'weak copyleft - binary only' licences to the 'can be used' list. That's a worthwhile proposal, but one that should take a pause and restart. Starting with CDDL/EPL/MPL would make sense as the most popular on that list (possibly individually). A lot of our use of those licences is binary, so having that position has not been as impactful as might be imagined at first. Hen On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Sam Ruby wrote: You may not have been aware that it is an ASF problem to worry about whether downstream distributors can make derivative works -- Free and proprietary alike -- of our projects, but it is true. As such, we care very much about the kind of dependencies a project takes on, and the license of code that we bundle. Sam, of course I'm aware of that. That is precisely why I am requesting that you change that antiquated policy. Please remember, EVERYONE can make derivative works (free and proprietary alike) of Apache projects even if that software includes EPL and MPL works. What they can't do is to refuse to distribute derivative works of EPL and MPL components under their original licenses. That is a reciprocal requirement. But it doesn't prevent derivative works. EPL and MPL fall someplace in between. In between what and what? I've been challenged repeated here because certain GPL folks don't want their license interpreted this way. So if Apache changes its obsolete policy for every FOSS license except the GPL, I'll consider that a significant accomplishment. I'll wait impatiently for the lawyers who are trying to create a licensing exception for those GPL licensors that DO want their works incorporated into Apache projects. And with that, I believe we have covered why the three categories in the third partly licensing policy can not be collapsed into one category. No we haven't settled that at all. :-) /.Larry -Original Message- From: Sam Ruby [mailto:ru...@intertwingly.net mailto:ru...@intertwingly.net ] Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 4:54 AM To: Legal Discuss; Lawrence Rosen Subject: Re: Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy And with that, I believe we have covered why the three categories in the third partly licensing policy can not be collapsed into one category. I wasn't aware that it is an Apache problem to worry about whether downstream distributors want to make proprietary derivative works of EPL components. They can always talk to the Eclipse Foundation about that. You may not have been aware that it is an ASF problem to worry about whether downstream distributors can make derivative works -- Free and proprietary alike -- of our projects, but it is true. As such, we care very much about the kind of
Re: [License-discuss] Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy
Hen, the OSI task of license analysis in this context is trivial. ALL FOSS license are compatible with ALv2 for aggregations. But today is a US holiday, so let's give some OSI board members an opportunity to comment. /Larry From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bay...@apache.org] Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 12:24 PM To: Lawrence Rosen; license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy I don't see how you are going to do that unless the OSI are going to maintain complex lists. If this is the OSI are launching a license compatibility service, then there would be something to discuss at Apache. As it is, your proposal is becoming well trod ground around moving B(inary-only) list licenses to A(ttribution). Hen On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 11:51 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Hen, An important part of the proposed Apache Third Party License Policy is that we finally leave the sad domain of FOSS license compatibility determination to our friends and experts at OSI. If we have a question about whether a specific FOSS license infects Apache code, ask OSI at license-discuss@opensource.org mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org . That's not ASF's expertise. Our PMCs and certainly our board of directors are not qualified to maintain complex A, B and X lists of FOSS licenses and exceptions. And so in open source, different organizations can play their own important roles in our ecosystem. All this without turning one FOSS developer against another FOSS developer here at Apache merely because of their choice of wonderful FOSS license. /Larry From: Henri Yandell [mailto:bay...@apache.org mailto:bay...@apache.org ] Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 11:12 AM To: ASF Legal Discuss; Lawrence Rosen Subject: Re: Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy Your original proposal was (quoting the heart of it; for any readers not familiar refer back to the whole email): Proposal: Apache projects may accept contributions under ANY OSI-approved open source license. Such software may now be included in Apache aggregations that, as described above, will be licensed to the public under Apache License 2.0. An exception has evolved through the course of these threads, namely that GPL/AGPL versions are an exception to that and not covered. That also means a policy cannot approve 'ANY' as it's unknown what the next licence on the list would be. At this point the conversation is: a) Removal of particular licenses on the 'cannot be used' list that are on the OSI list. I think that's LGPL, QPL and Sleepycat licences. I don't think either of the latter are used on software today, so I don't see a need to do that. There are other licences on the OSI list that we don't have covered, so it's possible there are some we would consider on the 'cannot be used' list. This should become a thread on moving LGPL licences to either the 'weak copyleft - binary only' or 'can be used' list. The former makes more sense. b) Moving the 'weak copyleft - binary only' licences to the 'can be used' list. That's a worthwhile proposal, but one that should take a pause and restart. Starting with CDDL/EPL/MPL would make sense as the most popular on that list (possibly individually). A lot of our use of those licences is binary, so having that position has not been as impactful as might be imagined at first. Hen On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com mailto:lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Sam Ruby wrote: You may not have been aware that it is an ASF problem to worry about whether downstream distributors can make derivative works -- Free and proprietary alike -- of our projects, but it is true. As such, we care very much about the kind of dependencies a project takes on, and the license of code that we bundle. Sam, of course I'm aware of that. That is precisely why I am requesting that you change that antiquated policy. Please remember, EVERYONE can make derivative works (free and proprietary alike) of Apache projects even if that software includes EPL and MPL works. What they can't do is to refuse to distribute derivative works of EPL and MPL components under their original licenses. That is a reciprocal requirement. But it doesn't prevent derivative works. EPL and MPL fall someplace in between. In between what and what? I've been challenged repeated here because certain GPL folks don't want their license interpreted this way. So if Apache changes its obsolete policy for every FOSS license except the GPL, I'll consider that a significant accomplishment. I'll wait impatiently for the lawyers who are trying to create a licensing exception for those GPL licensors that DO want their works incorporated into Apache projects. And with that, I believe we have covered why the three categories in the third partly licensing policy can
Re: [License-discuss] Disclosure of patents by Apache projects
Lawrence Rosen scripsit: Willful blindness (sometimes called ignorance of law, willful ignorance or contrived ignorance or Nelsonian knowledge) is a term used in law to describe a situation in which a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting him or herself in a position where he or she will be unaware of facts that would render him or her liable. Does this mean that before taking action of any sort there is an affirmative duty to seach the entire patent registry to make sure that the idea you just had isn't in there? Surely not. I don't have a proper citation for this, but back in the 1920s _Time_ magazine was sued by a Florida lady for saying that her husband had divorced her rather than that she had divorced her husband. At the time, Florida law specified adultery as the sole ground of divorce, so she claimed that the error was a libel _per se_. The Supremes decided that while all men are presumed to know the law (for it is an excuse that every man will pleaed, and no man know how to refute), there was no reason for a New York corporation to know Florida law as well as all that. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,http://www.ccil.org/~cowan han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy
I don't see how you are going to do that unless the OSI are going to maintain complex lists. If this is the OSI are launching a license compatibility service, then there would be something to discuss at Apache. As it is, your proposal is becoming well trod ground around moving B(inary-only) list licenses to A(ttribution). Hen On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 11:51 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Hen, An important part of the proposed Apache Third Party License Policy is that we finally leave the sad domain of FOSS license compatibility determination to our friends and experts at OSI. If we have a question about whether a specific FOSS license infects Apache code, ask OSI at license-discuss@opensource.org. That's not ASF's expertise. Our PMCs and certainly our board of directors are not qualified to maintain complex A, B and X lists of FOSS licenses and exceptions. And so in open source, different organizations can play their own important roles in our ecosystem. All this without turning one FOSS developer against another FOSS developer here at Apache merely because of their choice of wonderful FOSS license. /Larry *From:* Henri Yandell [mailto:bay...@apache.org] *Sent:* Monday, May 25, 2015 11:12 AM *To:* ASF Legal Discuss; Lawrence Rosen *Subject:* Re: Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy Your original proposal was (quoting the heart of it; for any readers not familiar refer back to the whole email): Proposal: Apache projects may accept contributions under ANY OSI-approved open source license. Such software may now be included in Apache aggregations that, as described above, will be licensed to the public under *Apache License 2.0*. An exception has evolved through the course of these threads, namely that GPL/AGPL versions are an exception to that and not covered. That also means a policy cannot approve 'ANY' as it's unknown what the next licence on the list would be. At this point the conversation is: a) Removal of particular licenses on the 'cannot be used' list that are on the OSI list. I think that's LGPL, QPL and Sleepycat licences. I don't think either of the latter are used on software today, so I don't see a need to do that. There are other licences on the OSI list that we don't have covered, so it's possible there are some we would consider on the 'cannot be used' list. This should become a thread on moving LGPL licences to either the 'weak copyleft - binary only' or 'can be used' list. The former makes more sense. b) Moving the 'weak copyleft - binary only' licences to the 'can be used' list. That's a worthwhile proposal, but one that should take a pause and restart. Starting with CDDL/EPL/MPL would make sense as the most popular on that list (possibly individually). A lot of our use of those licences is binary, so having that position has not been as impactful as might be imagined at first. Hen On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com wrote: Sam Ruby wrote: You may not have been aware that it is an ASF problem to worry about whether downstream distributors can make derivative works -- Free and proprietary alike -- of our projects, but it is true. As such, we care very much about the kind of dependencies a project takes on, and the license of code that we bundle. Sam, of course I'm aware of that. That is precisely why I am requesting that you change that antiquated policy. Please remember, EVERYONE can make derivative works (free and proprietary alike) of Apache projects even if that software includes EPL and MPL works. What they can't do is to refuse to distribute derivative works of EPL and MPL components under their original licenses. That is a reciprocal requirement. But it doesn't prevent derivative works. EPL and MPL fall someplace in between. In between what and what? I've been challenged repeated here because certain GPL folks don't want their license interpreted this way. So if Apache changes its obsolete policy for every FOSS license except the GPL, I'll consider that a significant accomplishment. I'll wait impatiently for the lawyers who are trying to create a licensing exception for those GPL licensors that DO want their works incorporated into Apache projects. And with that, I believe we have covered why the three categories in the third partly licensing policy can not be collapsed into one category. No we haven't settled that at all. :-) /.Larry -Original Message- From: Sam Ruby [mailto:ru...@intertwingly.net] Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 4:54 AM To: Legal Discuss; Lawrence Rosen Subject: Re: Proposal: Apache Third Party License Policy And with that, I believe we have covered why the three categories in the third partly licensing policy can not be collapsed into one category. I wasn't aware that it is an Apache problem to worry about whether downstream distributors want to make proprietary derivative
