<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PostalCode"
downloadurl="http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State" downloadurl="http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City" downloadurl="http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="Street" downloadurl="http://www.5iantlavalampft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="address" downloadurl="http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place" downloadurl="http://www.5iantlavalamp.com/"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType" downloadurl="http://www.5iantlavalamp.com/"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceName" downloadurl="http://www.5iantlavalamp.com/"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Copperplate Gothic Bold";
panose-1:2 14 7 5 2 2 6 2 4 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi";
panose-1:2 11 7 3 2 1 2 2 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Hello,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I am writing to begin a discussion about the license we (the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT for short) recently submitted to
the Open Source Initiative for approval as an OSI Certified license. The
title of the license is the Broad (pronounced Brr-ode as opposed to Brr-awed)
Institute Public License, or BIPL for short. Below please find the three
sections which your group has asked me to address:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><u><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>SECTION ONE – Most Similar OSI
Certified License to the BIPL</span></font></u></b><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The OSI Certified license that is most similar to the BIPL is
the Mozilla Public License (MPL). However, because of the Broad
Institute’s affiliation with MIT, and further because of MIT’s
unique situation as a very large research and educational institution, we could
not distribute software under all of the MPL’s terms.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The most significant reason why we could not use the MPL is
because MIT cannot agree to grant a license to any MIT-owned patent that may
end up being associated with the software. This is because it is
virtually impossible for MIT to know if any of its many professors,
researchers, investigators, or students have, are, or will do work that gives
rise to a patent claim that covers use of its software under the BIPL.
MIT cannot grant rights to these patent claims because the professors, researchers,
investigators, or students involved with the patent claim would not have an
opportunity to make decisions regarding the licensing of these patent claims if
a blind patent grant was part of a license that we distribute under. The
patent grant in the MPL is an encumbrance that MIT cannot agree to give.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In the process of modifying the MPL to not include a grant
to MIT-owned patents, other less significant changes were also made.
These changes resulted from cleaning up the current MPL to reflect MIT-preferred
language in some areas and to clear up areas of the MPL that can often be
confusing. As a whole though, the only major difference between the MPL
and BIPL is the loss of the patent grant language found in section 2.1 of the
MPL.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><u><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>SECTION TWO – Use in Conjunction with
Software Distributed Under Other Open Source Licenses</span></font></u></b><b><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:
bold'>.</span></font></b><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Because we have incorporated many of the ideas of the MPL
into the BIPL, software distributed under the BIPL can easily be used in
conjunction with software distributed under other open source licenses.
Both sections 3.6 and sections 12 of the BIPL allow for such
distribution. It is likely that derivative and combined works would be
licensed under the BIPL, but because of its versatility, there is no reason the
rest of the work could not be licensed under another open source license so
long as the requirements of the BIPL are met for the Covered Code. We are
not aware of any software license that would be entirely incompatible with the
BIPL, although if a license is entirely incompatible with the MPL, it would
also likely be incompatible with the BIPL.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><u><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>SECTION THREE – Plain Text Version of
the BIPL</span></font></u></b><b><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;font-weight:bold'>.</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I have attached two documents to this e-mail to aid the
discussion. The first is a Microsoft Word version of the BIPL (entitled <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>Broad Institute Public License Clean 2006-05-05</span></i>).
If for some reason you have difficulty reading this attachment, you can also
find the license here: <a
href="http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/r/p/rpp/www/">http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/r/p/rpp/www/</a>.
The second is a comparison of the BIPL to the MPL, performed using Deltaview
but saved as a Microsoft Word file (entitled <i><span style='font-style:italic'>DV
Comparison – MPL vs BIPL 2006-05-05</span></i>).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I look forward to receiving your feedback on the BIPL.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns that
you may have.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Best regards,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Rory Pheiffer<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Copperplate Gothic Bold"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Copperplate Gothic Bold"'>Rory P.
Pheiffer, Esq.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Technology
Licensing Associate</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Massachusetts
Institute of Technology</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Technology
Licensing Office</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Five <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, NE25-230</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address tabIndex="0"
style="BACKGROUND-POSITION: left bottom; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(res://ietag.dll/#34/#1001); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat-x"
w:st="on"><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Kendall Square</span></font></st1:address></st1:Street><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2
face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Cambridge</span></font></st1:City><font
size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>, <st1:State w:st="on">MA</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode
w:st="on">02142-1493</st1:PostalCode></span></font></st1:place><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>E-mail: </span></font><a
href="mailto:rpp@mit.edu"><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>rpp@mit.edu</span></font></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Telephone:
(617) 253-6966</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Franklin Gothic Demi"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Franklin Gothic Demi"'>Fax: (617)
258-6790<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>_______________________________________________________________________________
</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><strong><b><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>NOTICE:</span></font></b></strong><font
size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'> This email may contain confidential or
privileged information intended for the addressee <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>only.</span></font> <font size=2><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>If you are not the addressee, be aware that any
disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>information is prohibited. If you have received
this email in error, please call us at 617-253-6966.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>_______________________________________________________________________________
</span></font><font size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>