apache license 2.0 for consideration

[Arnoud Engelfriet]

Eben Moglen wrote:
> On Tuesday, 24 February 2004, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
>   I'm not even sure the license still exists if you take out the
>   Contribution I made (embodying my patented method) and put
>   it in some other work. 
>   
> In that case there would no mystery about the FSF position.  If that's
> the right interpretation of the patent grant, then ASL2 isn't a free
> software license at all. 

The ASL2 says in section 3 that each Contributor gives everyone
a patent license to "make, use [etc]" the Work. This is just
like the GPL: the license is just for the work in question.

Licensed are those patent claims that "are necessarily infringed by 
[the] Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) 
with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted".

So, if I have a patent on "web server software arranged to perform 
method X" and I contribute code to do method X to Apache, everyone
using Apache has a license to do method X with my code and Apache.

Now, someone takes my contributed code and combines it with another
web server (or in a completely different program). This is allowed 
under the copyright license. But my patent license was _only_ to
"make, use [etc] ... *the Work*".

The definition of "Work" in the ASL2 seems quite limited. The
separate definition of "Derivative Work" and the constant use of "the
Work or Derivative Works thereof" in the license makes it clear to me
that "Work" and "Derivative Work" are different things. 

So apparently Derivative Works are not covered by the patent license!

Perhaps it would be better to have contributors grant a license
to make, use, sell etc. their _Contribution_ and combinations of
their Contribution with the Work or Derivative Works thereof.

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
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