[License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 04:17:03PM +0000, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote:
> With or without OSI approval CC0 appears to be an accepted open source
> license to the US Government.
> 
> 
> https://code.gov/
>
> "We understand OSI's reservations (which relate to the lack of
> explicit patent language), but are comfortable with our assessment
> that CC0 meets the definition of open source. There are other
> standard open source licenses which also do not explicitly address
> patents."

The concern that some on license-review had about CC0 was not about
lack of explicit patent language (which is characteristic of many
OSI-approved licenses) but rather the explicit statement: "No
trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned,
surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document."  (I
don't think anyone raised any concerns about the trademark side of
that sentence.)

> Creative Commons recommends that CC0 be used with a patent grant for
> Code.gov which the government folks at 18F are considering.
> 
> "Patents are a thing, and Creative Commons' comment on the White House
> source code policy 
> <https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/issues/149>recommends an
> explicit patent disclaimer, something we're considering at 18F.²
> 
> https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/issues/258

If the US government standardizes on some particular explicit patent
language to use with CC0 I would welcome OSI review of that. 

Richard