[License-discuss] Disclosure of patents by Apache projects

[Lawrence Rosen]

Elsewhere on internal Apache member email lists we've been discussing a
patent that may or may not apply to Apache software. I already quoted
publicly the strongly-held opinion of one Apache member that "this patent is
just plain BS, IMHO." He may be right.

 

My concern is that Apache members are not qualified to make this
determination about any patent. Nor is the Apache Software Foundation
resourced to do that analysis professionally for our users. 

 

However, I believe that ASF is obligated to disclose whatever patent
information comes to our developers' and members' attention. This is one of
the key purposes of a NOTICE file in open source software.

 

Others disagree strongly. Here is what Roy Fielding wrote on a public Apache
list on 27 Mar 2012: http://s.apache.org/B3F. I quote part of it now:

 

It has been discussed.  This idea is the moral equivalent of pointing a gun

at our user while saying that it is most likely unloaded.  It simply isn't
done.

Adobe has not asked for it to be done.  The only company that has ever asked

for it to be done is Sun, and we not only refused to do so -- we exited the

entire Java community process because of it.

 

So, the answer to your suggestion is well known.  Sam knows that answer.

He does not need to discuss it with you or anyone else because there is

already a long history behind it and a board precedence.  We do not notify

our users that an unspecified patent might possibly be owned by some

third-party based on a theoretical reading of a patent license on a

specification that we don't even implement.  If that third-party identifies

a specific patent AND indicates that the patent might apply to our product,

then we would include information about that in a README file (assuming

we didn't kill the product outright).

 

As a non-patent but practicing attorney, I don't believe I'd ever personally
recommend that we kill an international Apache project outright simply
because someone pointed a US patent gun at it.

 

On the other hand, we have a NOTICE file and we owe our customers whatever
the facts are.

 

I'm looking for agreement by Apache customers to this NOTICE policy in a
very antagonistic, patent-hating and unfriendly Apache community that takes
such discussions personally, like religion.

 

/Larry

 

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