Apple Public Source License - is it OSI certified?

[Raymond Luk]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net>
To: <license-discuss at opensource.org>
Sent: November 15, 1999 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: Apple Public Source License - is it OSI certified?


> Personally I object to the APSL because of Apple's right to withdraw it
> if there is a claim of infringement.  The problem is that this means that
> the janitor's mother-in-law could say "I think the whole thing infringes"
> and the entire source code would be withdrawn; the license doesn't require
> that the claim be one which is made in court.  (And the clause requiring
> Apple to un-withdraw the rights if they win in court doesn't apply if it
never
> _goes_ to court.)
>

Paragraph 9.1 of the APSL states that they may suspend your rights to the
*Affected Original Code*. This means withdrawing only the code under
contention, and that Apple cannot widthdraw the entire code base, only their
original contributions.

Bruce Perens writes:
"If termination due to an infringement claim is to be allowed at all, it
should be explicitly limited to the particular source-code lines that are
considered to infringe upon an existing patent. This would make it possible
for the free software community to "write around the problem" and create a
non-infringing version. "

But this issue raises an interesting point: if my company releases some
source code which is later found to infringe a third-party's copyright, I
clearly cannot continue licensing the infringing code. Furthermore, *you*
may not be able to continue to use or redistribute the affected code
anyways, so Apple's right to withdraw its license may not be such a big
deal.

IMO, current Open Source licenses are vague regarding the results of
infringement suits on Open Source code.


Raymond Luk
ray at hbesoftware.com