[License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

Wed Dec 7 00:11:07 UTC 2016

Nigel Tzeng wrote: 

So Larry and Ben, is RHEL is not open source because you cannot redistribute
RHEL without a trademark license from RedHat?

[<LER>] But you can redistribute RHEL if you don't modify it. If you modify
it, apply a different trademark to distinguish it in the marketplace. No
trademark license is needed. Trademarks are easy for open source in that
sense. If you don't like Firefox, use Iceweasel. 

If an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open source should an
explicit trademark grant also be required?  Does CPAL provide an implicit
permission to use trademark given the attribution requirement?

[<LER>] Set trademarks aside for now. Assume you won't get a trademark
license allowing you to apply someone else's trademark to your unique goods
or services.

I don't believe that an explicit patent grant is a requirement for open
source. On the other hand, I believe an explicit patent grant is important
to make software less risky to consumers. That is why I like the W3C form of
patent grant rather than the IETF mere disclosure of possible patents. Yet
both IETF and W3C standards are implemented in open source. 

I would not object if OSI made an explicit patent grant a new requirement
under the OSD. After all, it is a solid requirement at W3C. But there will
be objections....

/Larry

From: License-discuss <license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org
<mailto:license-discuss-bounces at opensource.org> > on behalf of Ben Tilly
<btilly at gmail.com <mailto:btilly at gmail.com> >
Reply-To: License Discuss <license-discuss at opensource.org
<mailto:license-discuss at opensource.org> >
Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 6:04 PM
To: License Discuss <license-discuss at opensource.org
<mailto:license-discuss at opensource.org> >
Cc: "henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi <mailto:henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> "
<henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi <mailto:henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> >
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

Looking at the open source definition, it should be able apply to any
license of any kind. 

The argument is that the patent grant is not open source because the
inability to continue using the software after suing Facebook for patent
infringement is a "price".  However you are unable to use the software
before receiving it, so you do not wind up worse off from having received
it.  Therefore there is no real price to receiving it.

After having received the program, there is clearly a price to violating the
license.  But the same is true for any license.  For example look at the GPL
v3.  If you distribute a GPL v3 program without appropriate copyright
notices as required by clause 4, then your license can be terminated under
clause 10, and you will lose the right to continue running the software as
granted under clause 2.  This is an apparent "price" of the exact same form.

Either this patent grant is open source, or no license can qualify.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Tzeng, Nigel H. <Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu
<mailto:Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu> > wrote:

On 12/6/16, 3:33 PM, "henrik.ingo at gmail.com <mailto:henrik.ingo at gmail.com>
on behalf of Henrik Ingo"
<henrik.ingo at gmail.com <mailto:henrik.ingo at gmail.com>  on behalf of
henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi <mailto:henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> > wrote:

>The question isn't about patents or copyrights. The point is that taking
>an OSI approved license and making additions to it by adding a separate
>file with additional terms and conditions, results in a combination which
>as a whole is not OSI approved open source license. It is no different
>from taking the BSD license and making additions to it within the same
>file.

In what way is the BSD copyright license impacted by an external patent
grant license?

How is this different than combining a BSD copyright license and an
external trademark license agreement?

IMHO it has everything to do with whether patents are in or out of scope
for OSI license approval for copyright licenses.

>I categorize patent grants with wide reaching termination clauses as
>commons-friendly. Like I said, my only regret is that there aren¹t
>licenses being used that would be even more wide reaching than this one.

That¹s fine as long as there are open source licenses with far more narrow
grants or no grants whatsoever like CC0.

CC0->ECL v2->Apache->React should all be fine from a OSI license approval
perspective.

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