On Mar 7, 2017, at 10:08 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. <nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu> wrote: > > You know the more I think about this, the disclaimer of patent rights in CC0 > is probably best for GOSS because it avoids the attempt for a one size fit > all patent grant language among different agencies with different policies > and the complexity under which patent rights are awarded to whom under the > Bayh-Dole Act and Executive Order 10096. > > Employees of federal agencies, especially research oriented ones, have some > financial interest and rights under 10096. > > Likewise non-profits and small businesses under Bayh-Dole. > > IMHO patent grant language in FOSS licenses provide a false sense of security. > > I would rather the government open source as much as possible regardless of > patent rights as long as any known patents are disclosed. As seen in > Ximpleware v Versata the patents typically only cover a small portion of the > overall system (VTD-XML). While it is relevant from the perspective of being > able to use the system as built it is less relevant from a code reuse > perspective. > > For large government systems significant software components could often be > reused without the specific portions covered under patent. > > So just having a copyright license to the entire project would provide > significant value to the community. There is code I wrote 30 years ago I'd > love to get access to again even if I couldn't use the rest of the system. > > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@opensource.org > https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
After a less than fabulous day at work for IRS dealing with my tiny corner of tax law as well as my accounts work, I am tempted after reading this. Perhaps this could be used as well as the rest of this thread as pre-decisional input to open a tight Inquiry in the Federal Register. That's the first step we can take to move into building a formal record for a body of law. Alternatively getting something chartered under the Federal Advisory Committees Act might help move this forward. I think the debate has dragged on a bit for more than a few months. Moving to where desirable federal policy/policies are adopted is probably doable. Could we narrow this down to 3 or fewer courses of action that might be explored by ARL counsel in an inquiry notice? Even if list participants are the only people that respond to a notice in the Federal Register we're still building a useful record for later use such as Federal Acquisition Rules changes, for example. Depending upon what shows up in the President's budget set to drop Monday, I either will have a lot of time on my hands coming up or an ICTAP certificate plus lots of time on my hands. I want to see Federal OSS policy evolve. We have laid the groundwork here but need to get it in the official record soon. Stephen Michael Kellat GS-0962-07/1 These views are solely my own and not those of the US Government. Rank, position, grade, and bureau are cited for identification purposes only. _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
