[License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

For government owned patents and software that would be fine but research organizations often bring existing IP to the table funded through internal research and development funding. Some of which has limited government use rights rather than full rights.

A blanket waiver of patent right by ARL may work for ARL because of the way ARL contracts are negotiated but may not work for all DoD stakeholders working under DFARS.


From: Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil<mailto:cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil>>
Date: Wednesday, Mar 01, 2017, 12:21 PM
To: Jim Wright <jwright at commsoft.com<mailto:jwright at commsoft.com>>, license-discuss at opensource.org <license-discuss at opensource.org<mailto:license-discuss at opensource.org>>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1

You've hit the nail on the head!  I personally want Government works to be Open Source, not open source.  That was the whole point of the ARL OSL being put forwards.  There are statutory and regulatory limits on what the Government can and cannot do; the lawyers I've talked with say that this is something we can do, which also protects Government interests (IP licensing, not getting sued for warranty/liability, etc.).

Is the concern that the **Government** is not licensing its patent rights?  ARL's internal process includes waiving any potential IP rights (including patent rights) in the software that is being released, so that should cover anyone downstream.

Thanks,
Cem Karan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Wright [mailto:jwright at commsoft.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2017 11:53 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Cc: Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org>; Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil>
> Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [License-discuss] Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL
> OSL) Version 0.4.1
>
> Certainly the approach code.mil spells out to contributions seems ok without having to address the license issue at all, but these questions
> seem orthogonal to me.  Cem seems to be trying to ensure that all open source projects operating using this process are under an OSI
> approved license, which appears to require them to pick one (or several) FOSS licenses to actually apply.  CC0 doesn’t work for that
> purpose because it’s not OSI approved anyway and also doesn’t have a patent license, but observing this doesn’t solve Cem’s problem of
> how to license this stuff in a way that *is* OSI approved, which I think is what he’s getting at.  (Feel free to correct me…)
>
>
> > On Mar 1, 2017, at 8:29 AM, Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> >
> > Well the complication is mainly a response to Cem wanting the OSI to
> > bless his proposed approach. I think however that code.mil has already
> > rejected this sort of idea.
> >
> > I think the code.mil approach is much more elegant without introducing
> > the use of CC0.
> >
> >

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