Hi John,
This is certainly my colleague from Apache's interpretation, and IANAL (and
FWIW neither is he, though admittedly he's got 10s of years of experience in
the FOSS space so I trust him big time). Check out:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/mailinglists.html#foundation-legal
You could subscribe to the legal-discuss mailing list, and I bet someone there
would have an example of the type of precedent you're asking for. If you don't
have time, no worries, I can post the below to the list and report back to this
mailing discussion. Just let me know and thanks!
Cheers,
Chris
On Dec 12, 2010, at 7:49 PM, John Graybeal wrote:
> This is the first time I've heard this, and I've been looking at license
> questions for a bunch of months lately (admittedly just scratching the
> surface). So it's a very interesting wrinkle.
>
> The implication, if I understand it correctly, is that when I find software
> that has a BSD license, I have no way to tell from the license whether or not
> I can actually use the software? Because the license itself doesn't say
> whether the software is patented. So even though I have a license that
> grants me usage privileges, you/they are saying that in fact it doesn't give
> me those privileges, because a patent may simultaneously apply -- or even be
> granted later? This seems quite counter-intuitive.
>
> I do recognize that the BSD license is short, and does not explicitly grant
> many particular rights that other licenses do. The lack of such detailed
> explicitness is interpreted as an advantage of BSD by many, since it doesn't
> look to take 3 lawyers to understand. To conclude that the right to *use* is
> in some way limited by this lack of detail is an interesting hypothesis, but
> I'm not sure I believe it, unless we have some kind of legal consensus (or
> better yet, an actual ruling) to refer to.
>
> Could you please point to some on-line material that indicates this is the
> case? Ideally material not written by Apache folks, just so we can
> understand how much of this is common knowledge in the community
>
> John
>
>
> On Dec 11, 2010, at 09:47, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote:
>
>> Hi James,
>>
>> Just a little bit more clarity too. The main difference between BSD and ALv2
>> has to do with patents. After discussing this with some ASF members, it
>> seems that BSD doesn't grant a downstream user of your software any patent
>> rights. So software distributed under the BSD license can be (knowingly)
>> patented by the inventor - and, in order to use the software, downstream
>> users have to license the patent independently of the BSD license. On the
>> other hand ALv2 means that if the original inventor of the ALv2 licensed
>> software has a patent on that software, then the owner must provide you as a
>> downstream user of the ALv2 licensed software a patent license. Of course,
>> nothing stops someone who isn't involved having a patent covering that
>> software and suing you for infringement, but that's an aside.
>>
>> Hope that helps to clarify some of the differences between the two.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Chris
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 10, 2010, at 8:28 PM, Gallagher James wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 10, 2010, at 8:38 PM, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Dennis,
>>>>
>>>>> We recently changed the opendap license to the one you
>>>>> currently see because James felt uncomfortable using the
>>>>> Apache license.
>>>>
>>>> I was wondering what made James feel uncomfortable about using the
>>>> ASLv2 license?
>>>
>>> Nothing. Mathworks needs BSD on code they redistribute and changing/
>>> adding licenses takes time. I know that ASLv2 and BSD are compatible
>>> in a way that will let our code work with it, so I'm solving several
>>> problems at once (with a single change). If I felt that we had code
>>> that would benefit from inclusion in the Apache OS framework, I would
>>> have chosen that - and we might, but I don;t have time to sort out
>>> these things right now.
>>>
>>> So my decision is no slight to Apache - I think the Apache Foundation
>>> is doing some really great things.
>>>
>>> James
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Is there something about that license
>>>>> that makes it unsuitable for your use?
>>>>
>>>> Not sure, but trying to figure out why the ASLv2 isn't being
>>>> considered? In my experience it's quite flexible in terms of
>>>> redistribution, commercialization, and attribution issues in FOSS
>>>> software, which are all important things to consider as a downstream
>>>> user of FOSS.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>>> Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote:
>>>>>> Hi James,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are you able to provide an OPeNDAP java release under the Apache
>>>>>> Software License, v2 [1]? That would *really* make OPeNDAP useable
>>>>>> in a number of Apache projects that I'd love to use the API in
>>>>>> (incl. Tika directly).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Currently it looks like it's some BSD-style license [1].
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Chris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
>>>>>> [2] http://scm.opendap.org:8090/svn/trunk/Java-OPeNDAP/COPYRIGHT
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Dec 7, 2010, at 12:18 PM, Gallagher James wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Dec 7, 2010, at 1:13 PM, Martin Desruisseaux wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hello all
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have been silent for a long time, busy on other tasks. But now
>>>>>>>> I would like to work on this Maven Central task (it is a blocker
>>>>>>>> issue for Geotoolkit.org release).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Since we can not fix the 4.2 deployment, I suggest to create a
>>>>>>>> new release: 4.2.1. This release would contains only two
>>>>>>>> artifacts in the edu.ucar group.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> • unidatacommon, which has no dependency.
>>>>>>>> • netcdf, which depends on the following:
>>>>>>>> • unidatacommon
>>>>>>>> • slf4j-api
>>>>>>>> • slf4j-jdk14 (by default, user may exclude this
>>>>>>>> dependency
>>>>>>>> and choose an other one).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I think that the following dependencies are optional, most of
>>>>>>>> them required only if we use OpenDap. Can someone confirm please?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> • bufrTables
>>>>>>>> • opendap
>>>>>>>> • jdom
>>>>>>>> • commons-httpclient
>>>>>>>> • commons-codec
>>>>>>>> • commons-logging
>>>>>>>> • ehcache
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Given that we have not yet sorted out the OpenDap licensing
>>>>>>>> issue, I suggest to leave OpenDap and its dependencies out for
>>>>>>>> now, and maybe add them in a 4.2.2 release. Does anyone agree
>>>>>>>> with this plan?
>>>>>>> A while ago I asked Dennis to change the license on the opendap
>>>>>>> software specifically so that it could be included. If there's
>>>>>>> another issue, or if time is tight, I certainly understand.
>>>>>>> However, if licensing is the only reason, that problem has been
>>>>>>> resolved AFAIK.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> James
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There is a proposal for the unidatacommon pom.xml file:
>>>>>>>> http://hg.geotoolkit.org/netcdf-deploy/file/tip/unidatacommon.xml
>>>>>>>> I will update the netcdf pom.xml proposal after we get
>>>>>>>> confirmation of the minimal set of dependencies.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Martin
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> James Gallagher
>>>>>>> jgallagher at opendap.org
>>>>>>> 406.723.8663
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>>> Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
>>>>>> Senior Computer Scientist
>>>>>> NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
>>>>>> Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
>>>>>> Email: chris.a.mattmann@xxxxxxxx
>>>>>> WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
>>>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>>> Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
>>>>>> University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
>>>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>> Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
>>>> Senior Computer Scientist
>>>> NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
>>>> Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
>>>> Email: chris.a.mattmann@xxxxxxxx
>>>> WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>> Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
>>>> University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> James Gallagher
>>> jgallagher at opendap.org
>>> 406.723.8663
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
>> Senior Computer Scientist
>> NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
>> Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
>> Email: chris.a.mattmann@xxxxxxxx
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
>> University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> netcdf-java mailing list
>> netcdf-java@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> For list information or to unsubscribe, visit:
>> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
>
>
>
> John Graybeal <mailto:jgraybeal@xxxxxxxx>
> phone: 858-534-2162
> System Development Manager
> Ocean Observatories Initiative Cyberinfrastructure Project:
> http://ci.oceanobservatories.org
> Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org
>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
Senior Computer Scientist
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
Email: chris.a.mattmann@xxxxxxxx
WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
