This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a
public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's
no clarity on whether calling it "open source" and citing the OSI's
definition of the term would be appropriate:
https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issu
Hello Karl,
On 02-05-14 14:55, Karl Fogel wrote:
This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a
public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and there's
no clarity on whether calling it "open source" and citing the OSI's
definition of the term would be appropr
On Fri, 02 May 2014 14:55:55 -0500
Karl Fogel wrote:
> This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a
> public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and
> there's no clarity on whether calling it "open source" and citing the
> OSI's definition of the term would
Richard Fontana writes:
>This work's authors seem to explicitly say that they are dedicating it
>to the public domain, not merely (or explicitly at all, as far as
>I can see here) relying on the notion of statutory public domain for
>US government works. I'd argue those are two different concepts
That's an interesting angle to bite on...
Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do
with those patents?
On 3 May 2014 06:45, "Richard Fontana" wrote:
> On Fri, 02 May 2014 14:55:55 -0500
> Karl Fogel wrote:
>
> > This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated
Karl Fogel scripsit:
> The patent issue would apply just as much if it were MIT- or
> BSD-licensed, though, and we'd call it "open source" then, right?
Indeed. We may not be in the business of approving licenses without
patent grants any more, but nobody can say that licenses that don't
grant pa
Henrik Ingo scripsit:
> Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do
> with those patents?
In the case of 6630507, they apply criminal sanctions to people who
seek to make use of the patented technology. Google for [patent 6630507].
--
John Cowan http://www.
On Sat, 3 May 2014 22:07:19 +0300
Henrik Ingo wrote:
> Does the US government grant itself patents,
Yes.
> and if so, what does it
> do with those patents?
Many are licensed to the private sector for revenue.
- RF
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License-discuss mailing l
On Sat, 03 May 2014 14:00:53 -0500
Karl Fogel wrote:
> Richard Fontana writes:
> >Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0
> >inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of
> >public domain source code created by a US government employee,
> >having
Richard Fontana scripsit:
> When the MXM license was considered, some people pointed to OSD #7
> as suggesting that a sufficiently narrowly-drawn patent license grant
> in a license would not be Open Source. This was the problem I raised
> when CC0 was submitted. It was the inconsistency. It depen
The analoguous explanation for why cc0 didn't qualify is that it explicitly
said "you get rights a and b but not c", with c a necessary right to copy
and use the software. It should be obvious that - even if you'd disagree
wrt patents - at least for some values of c that is clearly not open source.
Henrik Ingo scripsit:
> The analoguous explanation for why cc0 didn't qualify is that it
> explicitly said "you get rights a and b but not c", with c a necessary
> right to copy and use the software. It should be obvious that - even
> if you'd disagree wrt patents - at least for some values of c t
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:34 PM, Richard Fontana
wrote:
> On Sat, 3 May 2014 22:07:19 +0300
> Henrik Ingo wrote:
>
>> Does the US government grant itself patents,
>
> Yes.
>
>> and if so, what does it
>> do with those patents?
>
> Many are licensed to the private sector for revenue.
That is so p
John Cowan writes:
>I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can
>be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed
>to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it,
>but not to deny that it is open source.
[warning: long]
IMHO i
On Sun, 04 May 2014 11:48:13 -0500
Karl Fogel wrote:
> IMHO it would be a long-term problem for the OSI (and for open source
> in general, given the useful standardization/certification role OSI
> plays) to have there be licenses that we call "open source" but don't
> certify.
>
> After all, the
Karl Fogel scripsit:
> After all, the *definition* of "open source" is supposed to be just
> "whatever complies with the OSD". And our certification process is
> also "Does this comply with the OSD?"... So the two shouldn't diverge;
> to the extent that they do, we have a problem.
Actually, tha
Quoting John Cowan (co...@mercury.ccil.org):
[Appreciating and agreeing with what you say, FWIW, but I have one thing
to add.]
> In the end, certification is just a convenience to the users: it says
> that a group of fairly knowledgeable people are willing to stand behind
> the cliam that each ce
Richard,
I just wanted to call out a neat statistical trick you just made:
On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Sun, 04 May 2014 11:48:13 -0500
> Karl Fogel wrote:
> I don't know offhand the current count of OSI-approved licenses but I
> think it is around 70. In a typica
Henrik Ingo scripsit:
> Is the US governments exclusion of patents that explicit?
The only thing that makes the U.S. Government different from any other
actor in IP law is that it cannot (and therefore its employees acting in
the scope of their employment cannot) acquire copyright on any works i
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 9:13 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>
>
> I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can
> be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed
> to OSI Certified) license. There may be reasons not to certify it,
> but not to deny that it i
Simon Phipps scripsit:
> We did not decide against CC0. The discussion was certainly at a low point
> when Creative Commons withdrew it from the approval process, but that's
> what happened, not an OSI denial. Had they persisted, I believe OSI would
> have needed to face the issue of how licenses
Richard Fontana writes:
>> 1) Have licenses out in the world that are OSD-compliant, and that
>> we informally agree are "open source", but that we don't certify.
>> This will cause growing divergence between "what is open source"
>> and "what the OSI has approved". That would be very
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