For Approval: Educational Community License 1.0

[John Cowan]

Christopher D. Coppola scripsit:

> We had a chance to discuss the suggestion that we should mention in
> the ECL 2.0 that there is only one sentence that is different from  
> the Apache 2.0 and that?s all folks need to consider if they are  
> already familiar with the Apache 2.0 license.  We think it?s a very  
> helpful suggestion, and we are submitting a revised draft of the  
> license that makes the change.

Excellent.

[discussion of implicit vs. explicit patent grants snipped]

Hey, I'm all for explicit patent grants -- they make for clarity.  I was
simply pointing out that there is an informal interpretive tradition
around the MIT license, namely that the appearance of the patent-grant
verbs "use" and "sell" (two of the five traditional verbs "make, use,
sell, offer for sale, import") estops any licensor from claiming a patent
violation with respect to the software, since it is inconsistent to grant
the right to use software while withholding a patent license essential
for its use.  And if the original licensor is estopped, their patent
licensees are obviously also estopped.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  --John Donne