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

Wed Mar 1 17:35:30 UTC 2017

I've forwarded the link to our lawyers, I'll ping them on Friday when I get back in the office to see what they say.

Thanks,
Cem Karan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Wright [mailto:jim.wright at oracle.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2017 11:27 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Cc: Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil>; Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org>
> 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
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> ----
> 
> Of course, as Richard pointed out earlier, this would also be true as to the ASL, etc., except to the extent that the government choosing to
> effectively “waive" patent rights as Cem has said is not the same thing as a terminable patent license in the ASL - the UPL thus arguably
> putting the government on the most equal footing possible with everyone else given the expressed intent re: license scope… maybe the
> grant of “any and all copyright rights” would make them feel better about the copyright grant by virtue of not suggesting there necessarily
> are any?  Obviously tooting the horn here but it seems odd to me to require a dedication to the public domain in any event - stuff is either
> in the public domain by law or isn’t, and to whatever extent it isn’t, we should have a copyright license, full stop.  Similarly as to patents, I
> don’t want to have to look at some ostensible policy on waiving patent rights, we should all have a clearly scoped patent license for the
> project, government and private contributors alike, and there is an easy vehicle to achieve this, use an OSI approved license.
> 
> 
> > On Mar 1, 2017, at 7:49 AM, Jim Wright <jim.wright at oracle.com> wrote:
> >
> > Indeed, if there’s no copyright in the US, there may be no need of a copyright license from the government here, but in any event there
> *is* an OSI approved permissive license that licenses both any applicable copyright rights (without actually requiring that the government
> have any) and patent rights applicable to the project - the UPL.
> >
> > If the government releases code under the UPL, and accepts contributions under the UPL, they are using an OSI approved license, full
> stop, no need of extra terms or to treat other contributors any differently than the government itself, no need of an express public domain
> dedication which is any different than what is already true by law, everyone is simply licensing whatever copyright rights they possess as
> well as whatever patent rights they possess covering the project as they contributed to or provided it, and it seems to me at first glance
> like nothing else need be done…?
> >
> > Regards,
> >  Jim
> >
> >
> >> On Mar 1, 2017, at 6:49 AM, Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, Mar 01, 2017 at 09:37:13AM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
> >>> Strictly speaking, the use of
> >>> CC0 assumes that you have copyright ownership.
> >>
> >> I guess that's a bit of an overstatement, but still given the nature
> >> of the angst I've heard from US government people over the years
> >> concerning the use of nominal copyright licenses, I'd find it
> >> surprising if CC0 was treated differently.
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> License-discuss at opensource.org
> >> Caution-https://lists.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license
> >> -discuss
> >

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