[License-review] For Approval – CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Strongly Reciprocal (SPDX: CERN-OHL-S-2.0); CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Weakly Reciprocal (SPDX: CERN-OHL-W-2.0); CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Permissive (SPDX: CERN-OHL-P-2.0)

Andrew Katz andrewjskatz at gmail.com
Thu Oct 29 12:53:05 UTC 2020


Hi Carlo

Many thanks for raising this point, and apologies it’s taken a while to respond.

We take your comments on board, and I admit that an elegant wording of the principle behind section 5 eluded us (or me, specifically, as I will step away from the protection of collective drafters’ responsibility here and admit that the inelegance is my doing). It would perhaps have helped if the clause had started “In addition to any other permissions granted under this Licence”, since it has not been clear to many people how this clause was intended to interact with the other permissions granted. Essentially, it says that if you are engaging others to perform R&D for you, you can ignore the licence, and freely pass designs and products backwards and forwards without triggering any obligations to provide source, mark the products etc. If what is happening steps outside the scope of research and development (or testing and quality assurance) then this safe harbour falls away. We felt that it was important to explicitly state this, because it is far from clear in many jurisdictions whether it is possible to bring the relationship between a company and its contractors outside the scope of distribution (for example, by deeming the contractor be acting as an agent when they are undertaking that work). This clause was intended to clarify that point, and avoid a situation where someone inadvertently breached the licence terms by engaging a third party to do R&D etc. for them, but had not complied strictly with the other obligations which are required to enable the materials to be passed between entities, as opposed to being passed to the outside world (where those obligations should apply). 

We have this marked as an issue to clarify in a future iteration of the licence.

All the best


Andrew


> On 21 Aug 2020, at 09:04, Carlo Piana <carlo at piana.eu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Da: "Russell Nelson" <nelson at crynwr.com>
> A: "License submissions for OSI review" <license-review at lists.opensource.org>, "Andrew" <andrewjskatz at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Myriam Ayass" <Myriam.Ayass at cern.ch>, "Chris McCormick" <chris.mccormick at moorcrofts.com>
> Inviato: Martedì, 21 luglio 2020 21:25:21
> Oggetto: Re: [License-review]  For Approval – CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Strongly Reciprocal (SPDX: CERN-OHL-S-2.0); CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Weakly Reciprocal (SPDX: CERN-OHL-W-2.0); CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2– Permissive (SPDX: CERN-OHL-P-2.0)
> This submission is in good order, and these licenses comply with the OSD. We should approve these licenses.
> 
> Hi, 
> 
> 
> late comments,  I have been off the list for too long, sorry.
> 
> I also find no major flaws in this license and as a general comment it seems a good effort to improve the earlier version.
> 
> My only comment is that Section 5 seems a bit convoluted. It initially reads as a permission, while it eventually becomes a special case of conveyance-not-actually-so (non distribution) and attribution of the resulting copyright (?). The last bit seems to be better covered by the internal agreement between the parties and should not belong in a public license. While it is not a cause of non-compliance with OSD, I find it disturbing and potentially a source of unnecessary conflict, although the last period is not construed as a condition. Sorry if this is duplicative of other discussions occurred elsewhere.
> 
> My opinion is therefore that the license should be approved, but I urge considering a rewording of Section 5 in future versions and if at all possible in this one. I would phrase it to clarify that as a special case, if the licensees contracts development outside and it retains both control over the project, further distribution and is the assignee of this development, then this is considered as an internal use and development and not conveyance for other purposes of the license and the accordingly assigned rights are considered belonging to the licensee as if modifications were made by them.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Carlo

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