[License-discuss] CAL clarification

[Nicholas Matthew Neft Weinstock]

Hello, I wanted to get clarification on section 3.1(b) of the Cryptographic Autonomy License.

The relevant text from the license, as approved:


3.1. Permissions Granted
Conditioned on compliance with section 4, and subject to the limitations of section 3.2, Licensor grants You the world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive permission to:
...
b) Take any action with the Work that would infringe any patent claims that Licensor can license or becomes able to license, to the extent that those claims are embodied in the Work as distributed by Licensor.


I have two questions:
1) If someone contributes a small patch to a CAL project, and otherwise never distributes that CAL project (modified or unmodified), are they only granting a license to patents that fully read on their patch?
2) Does someone become a Licensor when they distribute an unmodified CAL project?

Thank you,
Nicholas Weinstock