[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) 0.4.0

[Scott K Peterson]

> The issue is the one that the Apache 2.0 license solves, and that the ARL OSL 
> is attempting to solve for works that don't have copyright attached. 
> Basically, clause 3 in each of the licenses means that you can't contribute 
> software that has patents on it, and then sue everyone for using said 
> contribution. Putting everything under CC0 doesn't protect the USG or anyone 
> that uses USG-sponsored projects from being sued, which at the very least 
> would be embarrassing, and in the worst-case, damaging to Open Source in 
> general. I want to avoid that issue entirely by having a license that will 
> stand up in court that makes it clear that contributors ARE licensing all 
> patents and other necessary IP rights when they contribute. 

Ah, thanks for your explanation. I now see the Rambus parallel: a patent-owning contributor asserting their patent against use of their contribution. 

I'm understanding that to be a concern about patent-owning non-governmental contributors, not about patents owned by the government. In that case, the code to which that patent license would relate would come from non-governmental contributors -- the government-specific copyright ownership concern would not seem relevant to that code. 

In any case, I'll add my voice to McCoy's: "why not just use Apache 2.0 and be done with it?" 

-- Scott