[License-review] Submitting CC0 for OSI approval

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Richard Fontana <rfontana at redhat.com> writes:

> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 02:34:14PM -0600, Christopher Webber wrote:
>> By this email we (Creative Commons) are formally submitting CC0 for
>> approval on the OSI license list.  
> [...]
>> Speaking personally, I believe that simplifying the "public domain
>> tool with fallback license" space is a good thing, and would be useful
>> for FOSS generally.  Conversely, I think CC0 on OSI's license list
>> would be useful in that many code hosting platforms look to OSI's list
>> when determining whether or not to list a license as an option... and
>> I think it would be great if CC0 were listed more often in such places!
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> I was wondering if Creative Commons can comment on one provision in
> CC0:
>
>   No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived,
>   abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this
>   document.
>
> I am not sure whether there is precedent for an OSI-approved license
> (at least, one that is, today, widely used) that explicitly reserves
> all patent rights. Many licenses are silent on the issue, while
> several relatively modern licenses include patent license grants of
> certain sorts.
>
> I'm not suggesting that CC0 does not meet the OSI definition, but I
> believe this issue should be considered before OSI proceeds to
> approval of CC0.

Hi Richard,

I don't have an immediate response, but have forwarded internally to
some people who might.  In the meanwhile, it would be helpful to get
greater clarification about your concerns.  I know you raise this on
identi.ca, but since you seem to be deleting all your content there, I
can't trust that I have the full context of conversation anymore. ;)

If I remember correctly, you said something about running into something
at RedHat where explicitly stating that CC0 stating that it did nothing
about patents was worse than if it had simply not mentioned them.  Is
there more that could be shared?  And do I have right that that's the
primary concern then?

Thanks!
 - Chris

(PS: delayed sending this, but yes I have seen
http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-February/000102.html :))