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

Thu Aug 18 20:55:50 UTC 2016

Are you asking what happens in foreign jurisdictions if the license is invalidated within the USA?  I have no idea; I don't even know what will happen within the USA in that case.  Maybe one of the lawyers on the list could comment?

Thanks,
Cem Karan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: License-discuss [mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Diane Peters
> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:28 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL)
> 0.4.0
> 
> All active links contained in this email were disabled. Please verify the identity of the sender, and confirm the authenticity of all links
> contained within the message prior to copying and pasting the address to a Web browser.
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> Copyright is not available for US government works as a matter of US copyright law (section 105), but that does not mean those works
> may not be restricted by copyright laws of other countries. Congress contemplated that expressly.
> 
> 
> 	“The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government works is not intended to have any effect on protection of
> these works abroad. Works of the governments of most other countries are copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons for denying
> such protection to United States Government works in foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making licenses for the
> use of its works abroad.”
> 
> 	Notes of Committee on the Judiciary (re Section 105), H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 59 (1976)
> 
> 
> Given this, it remains unclear how a license to the worldwide public would be invalidated by a court? Please say more.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 10:51 AM, Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil < Caution-
> mailto:cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil > > wrote:
> 
> 
> 	The only reason that the ARL OSL was proposed AT ALL is because there is a
> 	strong concern that since USG code doesn't have copyright [1], any license
> 	that relies exclusively on copyright may be invalidated by the courts [2].  If
> 	the USG had copyright, then I could stop pushing the ARL OSL entirely as we
> 	could use any of the OSI-supplied licenses.
> 
> 	So to be 100% clear, we don't know if any copyright-based license will stand
> 	up in court for works that don't have copyright attached.  The only reason
> 	that the ARL OSL was proposed was to deal with that particular situation.  If
> 	you have case law where the USG won a lawsuit over material licensed under one
> 	of the copyright-based OSI licenses where there was no claim of copyright,
> 	please provide it.  I can pass that to the ARL Legal team who can then review
> 	it.
> 
> 	Thanks,
> 	Cem Karan
> 
> 	[1] I'm making the usual assumption that this was code created by USG
> 	employees in the course of their duties; copyright can be assigned to the USG
> 	where and when it exists, but I'm ignoring that for right now.
> 
> 	[2] My expectation is that it would be invalidated for the USG-supplied
> 	portion, but not for any portion that had copyright attached.  Note that this
> 	is just my opinion, and I have nothing to back it up.  IANAL.
> 
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	> From: License-discuss [Caution-mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license-discuss-
> bounces at opensource.org > ] On
> 	> Behalf Of Smith, McCoy
> 	> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 2:54 PM
> 	> To: license-discuss at opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license-discuss at opensource.org >
> 	> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re:
> 	> U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL)
> 	> 0.4.0
> 	>
> 	> Or to put a finer point on it, the other issues you identify appear to be
> 	> ones that are explicitly addressed in many already-approved OSI
> 	> licenses, including Apache 2.0, the one you are modeling your license upon.
> 	>
> 	> I hope you're getting a sense that there are several lawyers on this mailing
> 	> list -- lawyers who have years of experience looking at,
> 	> debating, and giving advice on the issues you identify in this submission --
> 	> who think that your proposed license is a variant of Apache 2.0
> 	> designed to solve a "problem" for USG users with Apache 2.0 that we are
> 	> skeptical even exists.  Perhaps the ARL lawyers can clarify what
> 	> the problem is, and that we are missing something.  But I think at least I
> 	> am having a hard time understanding how this license does
> 	> anything that Apache 2.0 doesn't.
> 	>
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	> From: License-discuss
> 	> [Caution-Caution-mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org > ]
> On Behalf Of Richard
> 	> Fontana
> 	> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 11:33 AM
> 	> To: license-discuss at opensource.org < Caution-mailto:license-discuss at opensource.org >
> 	> Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re:
> 	> U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL)
> 	> 0.4.0
> 	>
> 	> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 06:17:07PM +0000, Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL
> 	> (US) wrote:
> 	> >
> 	> > Once again, liability isn't the only issue; there are also copyright
> 	> > issues (for contributors), and IP issues.  If we could solve the
> 	> > problem via a simple disclaimer of liability, we would.  We need to handle
> 	> > ALL the issues.
> 	>
> 	> Even if you were correct in the assertions you've made about ARL code, why
> 	> is a new license needed for contributors other than ARL?
> 
> 
> 
> 	_______________________________________________
> 	License-discuss mailing list
> 	License-discuss at opensource.org < Caution-mailto:License-discuss at opensource.org >
> 	Caution-https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss < Caution-https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-
> bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss >
> 
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: License.txt
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20160818/27857eee/attachment.txt>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 5559 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20160818/27857eee/attachment.p7s>