For Approval: Broad Institute Public License (BIPL)

[John Cowan]

Karin Rivard scripsit:

> I am writing on behalf of MIT.  It's not clear to me if this is how 
> the process works, but the group has raised a few issues on which I 
> would like to comment.

Be aware that there's a difference between substantive objections
and mere grousing, although it's hard to tell which is which unless
you've been on the list for a while.

> 1.  The requirements for OSI certification do not include a 
> requirement that the originator of the software offer a license to 
> originator owned patents.  As has been pointed out in the discussion 
> group, MIT's position  on not offering a patent license in the BIPL 
> is consistent with the GPL, the BSD license, the MIT license, the 
> Educational Community License, and others.

At least some of these have been interpreted to offer implicit
patent licenses (the MIT license uses the magic word "use" for
exactly that reason -- copyright-only licenses have nothing to
say about use), and the GPL explicitly says that you can't
distribute software under it if a patent forbids, which is
tantamount to saying (assuming you want to distribute at all)
that no patent of the licensor's does forbid.

> 2.  There is a lack of parity in treatment of the Originator of the 
> code and future contributors to the code.  This is true.  MIT will 
> not offer the patent license; however, the requirement on 
> contributors was an attempt to procure for users as many "freedom to 
> use" rights as possible.  If this disparity in treatment is so 
> abhorrent to OSI, it is easily remedied.  MIT will delete from the 
> BIPL all references to any patent grants from contributors.  Thus the 
> BIPL will simply be another open source license that is silent on 
> patent rights.

This is a legitimately debatable point.  We tend to be hostile to
asymmetrical licenses, though you are quite right that they have
been approved in the past.

> 3.  I do not understand the last comment from the list.  The software 
> is what is used.  The license is the mechanism by which the software 
> is used.  If no one contributes to the development of the software 
> because they do not like the license terms, that is ok.  The fact 
> remains that the software remains freely and openly available for use 
> by the public, which I thought was the goal.  Further, "use" or 
> "usability" is not one of factors that is stated as a requirement for 
> OSI approval.

We are reluctant to go through the effort of approving licenses which
no one but the drafter of the license will ever make use of.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  --John Donne