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

[Jim Wright]

Responses inline & thanks.

 Regards,
  Jim

> On Apr 15, 2014, at 7:43 PM, Josh Berkus <josh at postgresql.org> wrote:
> 
> Jim,
> 
>>> So realistically, LARGER WORKS would need to be an append-only file
>>> to which each downstream contributor adds their own covered works,
>>> or possibly some kind of online registry. This provision is going
>>> to make the license significantly more complicated.
>> 
>> 
>> Well, Oracle does not need to license its own patents for use in its
>> own products, and neither does Google, so problem solved!  ;-)
> 
> Well, actually, they do because both Java and Android are open-source
> and can be forked by downstream recipients.  As such, it is critical for
> those downstream modifiers to know if they are covered by the patent
> grant or not, or there's no point in including the patent grant in the
> first place.
> 

If one were outbounding the code under the UPL (not the case for Java), that's a fair point and I agree.  And they will know by looking at the Larger Works file which applies to any code they get under the UPL.  But I am not trying to encourage having differently scoped licenses for the same code.  (That said, it *can* be accommodated, see below.)

>> doesn't seem all that complicated, but in any event, IMHO, folks are
>> not really all that likely to want to be changing the license scope
>> for their own contributions from that of the rest of the project all
>> that frequently, and trying to manage differently scoped license
>> grants for different contributors to the same project was not a
>> problem I was trying to solve for.
> 
> *exactly*.  However, it is a problem this model *creates*.  An open
> source license with patent grants has to assume that downstream users
> will modify and redistribute the software, and that those users may have
> patents of their own to grant license to.  Otherwise you're assuming
> that nobody will ever modify the software, and if you're assuming that,
> why bother with a new permissive license?  Just use Apache.

I anticipate that most users will simply add their contributions covering the same Larger Work(s) covered by what they're contributing to when this is being used as a CLA.  But even to the extent that's not true, folks wanting to license their modifications on different terms than they received the code under can happen with a variety of licenses - the only difference here is that you're thinking about trying to do that without actually adding another separate license to cover those mods.  If folks want to do that, such a party can license its mods separately (under the UPL or otherwise) just like anyone else who wants to modify an open source project and license its mods under different terms.  Just add another copyright notice and reference to the UPL and the location of your LARGER_WORKS file if you're adding another one (or we could allow renaming per below to allow multiples in a single directory though I have initially resisted this in order to have one filename for folks to look for... still noodling on this point).



> Were I pursuing the LARGER_WORKS model, I'd suggest making it an
> append-only file with the following format, e.g.:
> 
> Grantor        Larger Work            Date
> Oracle, Inc.    JDK                2014-04-17
> Oracle, Inc.    Glassfish            2014-04-17
> 
> Google        Android Operating System    2015-07-19
> Josh Berkus    HyperDroid++            2016-03-05
> 
> This makes it fairly clear that as a user, I have a grant on any of
> Oracle's patents which cover the software + JDK, but not ones which
> cover the software + Android.  For the latter, I only have a grant to
> Google's patents. It would also allow the LARGER_WORKS files to be
> merged from different forks.
> 
> That's an engineering solution, mind you, because I'm an engineer.  It's
> probably gibberish from a legal perspective.
> 
>> Hmmmm.  I don't think it affects a lot of people but the 8.3 file
> system thing is a fair point and if people feel strongly about it we
> could rename it to LARGER_W.TXT or something.
> 
> Oh, that's easy; just have the license template read:
> 
> (b) any piece of software and/or hardware listed in the Larger Works
> file, named _________________, included with the Software (each a
> “Larger Work” to which the Software is contributed by such licensors),
> 
> i.e. you should leave it up to the licensor to decide what the specific
> name of the Larger Works file is.
> 
> --Josh Berkus

Still thinking about this - you're not the first to ask (off-list correspondence), but having spent a fair bit of time doing diligence on the code bases of other companies, I've spent way too many hours looking for license files and was trying to standardize so things don't get missed.