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

[Diane Peters]

Hi everyone,

As regards CC0 and its use by the USG, you may find this comment we posted
previously of possible interest and relevance.

https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/issues/149

Diane

Diane M. Peters
General Counsel, Creative Commons
Portland, Oregon
http://creativecommons.org/staff#dianepeters
13:00-21:00 UTC


On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:

> Jim Wright wrote:
>
> > Something is certainly better than nothing, I agree, but ...
>
>
>
> Jim, I'm on your side on this. :-)  I'm hoping that a U.S. government open
> source policy, someday published in the Federal Register and bearing the
> force of law, will also include an express patent pledge that we can all
> rely on. Copyright isn't enough. Maybe even UPL?
>
>
>
> Such a pledge could become a model for other large patent-holding
> institutions, such as universities, to give open source users reassurance
> that they are not patent infringers.
>
>
>
> That's a bigger topic than for here. It is largely up to that public
> Federal Register process that eventually may ensue. It has nothing to do
> with OSI's approval of CC0. This WE can do now on our own on behalf of
> government open source.
>
>
>
> /Larry
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Jim Wright [mailto:jim.wright at oracle.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 1, 2017 2:59 PM
> *To:* lrosen at rosenlaw.com; license-discuss at opensource.org
> *Subject:* Re: [License-discuss] Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army
> Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1
>
>
>
> Something is certainly better than nothing, I agree, but I think many of
> us would rather have an express and broad license from all participants in
> a project, including the government, than to have to rely on less than well
> understood public domain dedications and waivers of patent rights that do
> not apply to all participants.  Something closer to symmetry and broad
> coverage should be achievable here IMHO - the perfect may sometimes be the
> enemy of the good, but in this case, we can, I think, do better than CC0.
> YMMV of course.
>
>
>
>  Best,
>
>   Jim
>
>
>
> On Mar 1, 2017, at 2:01 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
>
> Jim Wright wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
>
>
> Jim, regardless of which OSI-approved license(s) the U.S. government
> chooses for its distributed software, neither the "public domain" question
> nor the "patent license" question will EVER be fully answered for any
> particular software simply by reading those licenses. You have to look at
> the software itself. Of course, we could all sue each other and let the
> courts decide....
>
>
>
> I'll be grateful for a published government policy – perhaps posted in the
> Federal Register someday – that reassures us of a commitment by government
> agencies to open source using *any* OSI-approved license.
>
>
>
> Including CC0.
>
>
>
> /Larry
>
>
>
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