[License-review] Request for Approval of Universal Permissive License (UPL)

[Jim Wright]

Members of the OSI License Review Community,

Below, please find a copy of the proposed Universal Permissive License (UPL) for license review, with the supporting information categories listed at http://opensource.org/approval.  

Legal Review

This license was authored by a lawyer (myself) and was also reviewed and enhanced by other lawyers both inside and outside of Oracle.  

License Proliferation Category

I believe it falls into the Other/Miscellaneous category, and the rationale for the license is as follows.

Rationale & Comparison to Similar Licenses

Many commercial developers require the ability to use code licensed from other parties in both commercial offerings and copyleft licensed FOSS projects.  They also generally prefer inbound licenses to include an express patent license.  This has resulted, among other things, in the widespread use of contributor agreements containing the desired patent license grants, as neither the BSD nor MIT licenses contain an express patent license or address the concept of contribution to a larger work, and the Apache license is not compatible with the GPLv2.    

The proposed license solves this problem with copyright and patent licenses covering both the Software distributed under the license and a Larger Work in the event the license is used for contributions.  It also expressly permits relicensing to facilitate use with both copyleft and commercial licenses, and is GPL compatible.

In addition to performing a non-duplicative function, I aimed for the license to be short, clear, and usable in multiple contexts, and I hope you will agree it is.  Thank you for your consideration.

 Regards,
  Jim Wright
  


The Universal Permissive License (UPL)

Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>

Subject to the condition set forth below, permission is hereby granted, free of charge and under any and all patent and copyright rights owned or freely licensable by each licensor hereunder, whether an original author or another licensor, to any person obtaining a copy of this software, associated documentation and/or data (collectively the "Software"), to deal in current and future versions of both

(a) the Software, and
(b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the LARGER_WORKS.TXT file included with the Software (each a “Larger Work” to which the Software is contributed by such licensors),

without restriction, including without limitation the rights to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, export, have made, have sold, copy, create derivative works of, display, perform, distribute, and sublicense the Software and the Larger Work(s) on either these or other terms.

This license is subject to the following condition:

The above copyright notice and either this complete permission notice or at a minimum a reference to the UPL shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.