[License-discuss] Proposal of new new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0)

Wed Nov 12 11:31:16 UTC 2025

Hi Bruce and Josh,

Thank you once again for taking the time and making the effort to review and comment on our draft license terms. We greatly appreciate this as well as your hard work for and commitment to the open-source community.

Unfortunately, based on your feedback, it seems like we have hit a dead end as we, as a business, of course cannot allow third parties to copy our products flat out, which would (or at least could) be the consequence of including a patent license or even not addressing that directly in the license text. We are also afraid that other licensors would not use it to license their graphics if it came at this risk.

However, we feel it is a shame for the ROS community not to have an OSI-approved license that licensors can use and users can rely on when it comes to the use of graphics, particularly in virtual environments, which is a key element of the community.

As a last resort, we would like to ask you if you see any way that we can allow the licensed materials (in the form of graphics) to be used freely with the sole exception of not (necessarily) letting anyone make functioning, physical copies of the products represented by the graphics and still get the license approved by the OSI?

Or would we, and everyone else, always have to include a patent license (either express or implied) to get it approved?

We will be looking forward to hearing from you and thank you for all your help and guidance.

Best Regards

Morten Fruelund
IPR Manager

Energivej 51
5260 Odense S
Denmark
Cell: +45 28 93 03 22
morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com<mailto:morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>

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From: Morten Fruelund <morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 14:47
To: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>; license-discuss at lists.opensource.org <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>; Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Proposal of new new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0)

Hi Bruce and Josh

Again, thanks for your feedback and insights. We will review them thoroughly and get back with a reply.

 Best Regards

Morten Fruelund
IPR Manager

Energivej 51
5260 Odense S
Denmark
Cell: +45 28 93 03 22
morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com<mailto:morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>

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From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 22:07
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>
Cc: Morten Fruelund <morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Proposal of new new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0)

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The license, as you plan, intentionally gives you the leeway to selectively enforce a patent should you not like a particular use or user. Because of this, I just cannot believe that it is sincerely meant to be an Open Source license. It is meant to fit the rules within your perception of them, no more

OSI has approved some licenses that they regret, and thus makes it explicit that what they have approved previously is not a justification for approving a present license. When we started OSI, no lawyer would help us. Thus understanding has clearly evolved under time.

Bruce Perens K6BP

On Wed, Nov 5, 2025, 12:50 Josh Berkus <josh.berkus at opensource.org<mailto:josh.berkus at opensource.org>> wrote:
On 11/5/25 4:16 AM, Morten Fruelund wrote:
 > It is correct that the proposed license, like Clear BSD, for example,
explicitly does not grant a patent license, whereas many other OSI
approved open-source licenses remain silent on the issue. Further, some
OSI-approved licenses contain similar, but of course not identical,
restrictions on or exclusions from the licenses to various types of IP,
e.g., RPL-1.5, which states the following in Clause 5.0:

ClearBSD is not an OSI-approved license.

And I knew you were going to mention RPL-1.5.  That license already came
up in an OSI committee review of old licenses which might not meet our
current standards for OSD compliance (TBD).  That license was submitted
at a time when OSI's understanding of the interaction between patent and
copyright for open source was less mature than it is today (SCO Unix vs.
Linux was an education for the whole industry).

OSI has been around for almost the whole of open source, and our
understanding of what exact clauses preserve software freedom, and which
ones do not, has evolved in that time.  Indeed, if it had not, we would
have failed in our mission.  This was the reason for adding additional
information to the license submission process, such as these two advisories:

 From https://opensource.org/licenses/review-process [opensource.org]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://opensource.org/licenses/review-process__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!STP7uwsH9U8dcENCcIukLqwGOmaE1JaXHKmtfuHrjtDU2Dwi-eFwdwXm6YdLQQvdL_P6SOtPCSUfLrXqNWboz9rFat0$>

"The license does not have terms that structurally put the licensor in a
more favored position than any licensee."

 From
https://opensource.org/licenses/common-reasons-for-rejection-of-licenses [opensource.org]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://opensource.org/licenses/common-reasons-for-rejection-of-licenses__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!STP7uwsH9U8dcENCcIukLqwGOmaE1JaXHKmtfuHrjtDU2Dwi-eFwdwXm6YdLQQvdL_P6SOtPCSUfLrXqNWboXKapT2Q$>

"An express statement that no patent license is granted. The failure to
grant a patent license means the license fails to meet OSD 6, 7 and 8. A
license that makes no statement at all about patents may be acceptable,
depending on whether the way the license grant is expressed can be read
as an implied grant, e.g., the 3-Clause BSD License that permits “use”
of the software."

--
-- Josh Berkus
OSI Board Member
--
-- Josh Berkus
OSI Board Member

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