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

Fri Mar 3 13:40:23 UTC 2017

ARL's policy is to waive its own potential patent rights before releasing the software.  If there are extra rights that we can't license/release for this purpose, then our legal team will refuse to allow the software's release, so anything ARL releases under our policy should be clean from an IP standpoint.

That said, I see the point of a patent pledge of some kind; I'll ask our legal team if we can put something in, but then we'll have a situation of (OSI approved license) + CC0 + (patent pledge), which feels fairly cumbersome.  I'd prefer that we have something more streamlined in place that satisfy Government needs and OSI needs.  The best approach I know of **right now** is simply (OSI approved license) + CC0.

I'll bring this point up on the Federal Open Source Policy Group's list though, so they have a better idea of what the issues are.

Thanks,
Cem Karan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Wright [mailto:jim.wright at oracle.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2017 7:19 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Cc: Larry Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>; 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
> 
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> ________________________________
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> 
> 
> We do agree for the most part, but not entirely here.  I was more looking back to Cem’s original question about whether CC0 would
> ensure their projects are Open Source today, which it would not, in the absence of action on CC0 that would not be unanimously
> supported to say the least.  My take is that they could better attend to this problem right now by choosing any existing OSI license,
> preferably one with a clear patent license, and if Cem is looking to ensure that their projects are Open Source in the immediate term, this
> is a path that requires nothing of the rest of us and little to nothing of them either IMHO.
> 
> Of course my view is obviously colored by my take that CC0 is *not* a good model for open source and that it would have been a bad
> thing for it to have been approved - a license that specifically reserves rights of the author to pursue infringement claims against users is
> not a license we want to encourage the use of, by the government or anyone else...
> 
>  Best,
>   Jim
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 	On Mar 1, 2017, at 3:34 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com < Caution-mailto: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 [Caution-mailto:jim.wright at oracle.com < Caution-mailto:jim.wright at oracle.com > ]
> 	Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 2:59 PM
> 	To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com < Caution-mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com > ; license-discuss at opensource.org < Caution-mailto: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 < Caution-mailto: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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