For Approval: Educational Community License 1.0

[John Cowan]

Christopher D. Coppola scripsit:

> Is it generally agreed that a license like the MIT license implictly  
> grants a patent license as you describe was pointed out?   

Most people in the free software licensing community either think so
or have no opinion on the subject, based on my latest finger-licking.
The good people at MIT have denied that such an interpretation was
intended by them, saying that it contravenes their long-established
patent licensing policy.

AFAIK, neither MIT nor any other licensor has sued for patent infringement
(and a good thing too) in a situation where the question of implicit
licensing might arise.

> Thanks for the comments. We realize that this isn't the ideal  
> situation. We are also committed to working on the problem as a  
> community. This interim step... Using an approved ECL 2.0 will be a  
> big step in the right direction for our communities.

I'd urge you to explicitly structure this as Apache 2.0 + limitation,
as that it makes it much easier to understand.  There's nothing like
having to scan a long stretch of legalese, wondering just wherein it
differs from a base license that you already understand.

-- 
First known example of political correctness:   John Cowan
After Nurhachi had united all the other         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Jurchen tribes under the leadership of the      cowan at ccil.org
Manchus, his successor Abahai (1592-1643)
issued an order that the name Jurchen should       --S. Robert Ramsey,
be banned, and from then on, they were all           The Languages of China
to be called Manchus.