[License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process

[Lawrence Rosen]

Bruce Perens wrote:
> CC0 is a way for the scientists to sneak the data past this system
> while leaving the piece the universities want to sell. But we need to
> recognize that the piece that's being held back is not in the interest
> of software developers and users, and ultimately is used to extort
> them.
> We shouldn't further encourage it.


Several years ago MIT tried to gain approval of a license that explicitly withheld patent rights for that exact reason. Their (valid) argument was that the academics who contribute software usually don't own the patents that their universities acquire for their inventions. We didn't approve that license then; I vaguely recall that MIT withdrew it from consideration after several of us pointed out that it seemed to be a bald-faced attempt to introduce software into the stream of commerce without even disclosing that patents applied.

I don't necessarily agree with Bruce that the CC0 license reflects such a bad motive. But licenses should at least require the disclosure of known or suspected patent claims so that users aren't ambushed.
 
/Larry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: license-review-bounces at opensource.org [mailto:license-review-
> bounces at opensource.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Perens
> Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 9:15 AM
> To: license-review at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
> 
> On 02/25/2012 05:45 AM, Clark C. Evans wrote:
> >
> > In this case, the OSI should also approve a MIT derivative with an
> additional term that says that patents are explicitly *excluded* from
> the grant.
> This isn't a good idea for software.
> > Christopher said the patent exclusion in the CC0 was deliberate
> because those who would use the CC0 *have* patents relevant to the
> material being  released under the CC0 and do not wish to also grant
> them.
> The organizations in question are in general performing publicly-funded
> research. It's unfortunate that the Bayh-Dole act in the U.S. (and
> similar policy elsewhere) encourages them not to return the benefit of
> that research to the public that funded it, and instead to patent it
> and selling that to a monopoly holder. And thus we often find a
> business being sued for infringement of a patent, after paying taxes
> that funded the development of the patent.
> 
> CC0 is a way for the scientists to sneak the data past this system
> while leaving the piece the universities want to sell. But we need to
> recognize that the piece that's being held back is not in the interest
> of software developers and users, and ultimately is used to extort
> them.
> We shouldn't further encourage it.
> 
>      Thanks
> 
>      Bruce