On Mon, 7 May 2007, Christopher D. Coppola wrote:
> I'm curious about a comment you made...
>
>> I just can't wrap my head around the idea that
making the scope of the
>> patent rights less clear for recipients (placing
the burden on them to
>> determine who the employers of contributors are,
and whether the
>> contributions were on the clock or off, etc) is an
improvement that merits
>> certification as a new open source license -
>
> It seems to me that with ECL 2.0 we're making the
situation much more clear.
I meant in comparison to the Apache license, and being able
to consult a
public list of contributors to an Apache-licensed project.
> Today it's anyone's guess whether or not any given
patent held by the
> individual contributor or institution might be
licensed. ECL 1.0 makes no
> such claims and we're unsuccessful getting full
compliance on the inbound
> (contribution agreement side because of this hang-up
with many of the
> universities involved)...
Which certainly is not an unfamiliar story - there's a
similar reaction
when corporations first look at the Apache contributor
agreement. At some
point they realize that their own use of the technology
typically vastly
outsizes their potential contributions, and that they get a
whole lot of
quid for comparatively little quo, and can scope that quo
further through
the contributor agreement.
> with ECL 2.0 and the accompanying contribution
agreements we make it
> clear on the outbound side (ECL 2.0) that patents are
licensed for the
> scope of work intended to be contributed. We consider
this a big step in
> the right direction. That said, we're eager to simply
adopt the Apache
> license without modifications and we'll be working
toward this as a next
> step.
That's great!
> Keep in mind that what we're requesting isn't a new
license--it's a
> replacement, and it's really not intended for general
use.
The problem with that thinking is that one goal for Open
Source licenses
and software is the creation of a software commons from
which other
projects can draw, regardless of purpose or origin. If you
come up with a
cool new end-user-friendly collaborative document editing
tool, a license
with subtle incompatibilities (even OSI-licensed) will tend
to inhibit the
kinds of external contributions that could really make a
difference.
> Our license falls into the Special Purpose category
because at present
> we clearly have some unique challenges as a community.
I don't see what you've suggested as being unique to the
educational field
- lots of large companies claim that it's impossible for
them to keep
track of their own IP, at first. Lots of them have complex
R&D projects
that bind the resulting IP to exclusive licensing
arrangements. That this
is happening in academia is a result of the game-theory
disaster that
patent precedents and Bayh-Dole created - there's a mad rush
to patent as
much as possible, and then exclusively license to generate
revenue for the
campus. I'm not unsympathetic to the needs of universities
for funding,
but if they're going to become arms of corporate R&D
departments, then
being able to keep track of the IP they create and keep
their own
developers appraised of such seems like the least one can
ask for - or at
the very least, to consider a contributor agreement that
provides the
scoping they feel they need.
Brian
|
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