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

[Josh Berkus]

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.

Also, I might suggest not using inflammatory language regarding
corporate rivals of your company.  I know you meant to be funny, but it
didn't work out that way.

> 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.

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