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Apache License Updated to 2.0
Roy_Fielding writes "The Apache Software Foundation has approved an update
to the open source
Apache License (Version 2.0) that will be mandated across all Apache projects
starting on March 1st.
I have been working on variations of this
license for the past three years, trying to
balance the many different goals of the revision. That includes making the license easier for
non-ASF projects to use, improving compatibility
with GPL-based software, allowing the license
to be included by reference instead of listed
in every file, clarifying the license on contributions, and requiring a patent license on contributions that necessarily
infringe a contributor's own patents.
The result is a license that is compatible with other open source
licenses, such as the GPL, and yet still remains true to the original
goals of the Apache Group and supportive of collaborative development
across both nonprofit and commercial organizations." While it has yet to become OSI-certified, it will probably will be so Real Soon Now, and in the meantime it's fun to compare licenses.
If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
I'm no lawyer, but this seems to be saying that if you sue anyone for breach of patent for something in apache, then you lose your patanet license?
Can someone explain this onein plain english, please?
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
Can someone explain to me some specific problems there were with the old license? Not having it in every file I am sure makes things a bit easier, but what else does this do exactly? The original poster didn't make this too clear, and I don't exactly go around studing licenses unless I know it conflicts with something for me personally.
They tried "improving compatibility with GPL-based software", but is it compatible or not?
From a quick read it seems to be a valid Free Software license, but clause 4.d may make it incompatible with the GPL. This would be unfortunate for such a trivial condition. GPL doesn't allow placing additional restrictions on distribution, so is requiring a NOTICE file, and additional restriction?
The patents section might also be GPL-incompatible, but it might be GPLv3-compatible when GPLv3 comes out.
Has anyone seen of any comments from FSF about this?
Altogether, it's a good license, and vastly superior to the last proposal which was ~100 pages long. (slight exageration)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Well....yes! This whole BSD style vs GPL style licenses really boils down to individual preferences. Your attitude and reason for choosing the ASF / BSD licenses is perfectly valid and I have no quarrel with you over that. I myself would prefer the GPL for all the reasons that the BSD-style license advocates disparage. I do want freedom on my terms or not all all, but then again, isnt that the definition of freedom? I mean, would it make a slave "free" if the slave-owner declared that he is "free" while continuing to subjugate him? It is the slave's point of view that is the ONLY point of view to consider when deciding if he is free. In summary, if you consider the BSD style license to produce free software, thats fine by me. But what I consider free is really GPL style software. Thats just my $0.02 and I'm sticking to it.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
Is going to lawschool a requirement for beeing a geek nowadays?
Ciryon
Does the Apache license allow commercial distribution of code based on the apache code, in the case where the modified source code is included as part of the commercial package, but the end-user is prohibited from redistributing the source code?
What is unusual about this license is that it grants a license to the copyright. Most licenses only grant a right contained and protected by copyright law. For example, a company may grant a license to distribute a good, or to reproduce elements of an original work of authorship. I have never heard of being able to license a copyright. We assign and transfer copyrights and we license trademarks and rights granted under tm, (c), and or patent. I wonder if this agreement is really valid. Lets say that someone modifies some code and then registers the copyright and does not inform the Library of Congress about the Apache license. Moreover, what if the "thief" then files suit against derivative authors. The problem here is that fed law trumps the law of contracts and under federal law you can share copyright in a work- it's called joint ownership. One suggestion is that Apache could grant a nonexclusive right to create derivative works so long as they meet the highest standards in the industry. It would be interesting to see if Apache filed the copyright through the LOC? It might be interesting to look into how foreign civil law treats software because it is more natural law/moral rights based and does not allow corporate entities to own the full ip rights of a creator.
Jax
Software (et al.) patents are essentially:
- legalized monopolies, and monopolies are bad.
- legal minefields for software initiatives, and mines are extremely counterproductive in (real and analogous) terms.
- an involuntary subsidy by the software industry for the self-serving legal industry.
- an impediment to open (and commercial) software development.
- an idea based solution to an implementation driven market (ideas are cheap; implementation is hard).
- a backwards implementation benefitting manipulators of the system, not the brilliance in innovation.
- an upside down system benefitting those with big pockets (and fat lawyers) instead of the underdogs (for whom patents were very originally intended).
- a joke in any industry (e.g., software) where production is a mere disk copy away (i.e., there is no manufacturing impediment in software, so even the original concept of patent protection is absurd)
- completely absurd to implement in theory (due to impossibility of any patent examiner's job) and practice considering the infinitude of like ideas in different forms (with patents as with novels, plots, etc.)
- absurd since software is a written form of thought --- and you shouldn't be able to patent (anything but especially) thoughts.
That's just off the top of my head.
IOW, patents are a Lehman (prounounced "lemon") law perpetuated so the legal industry can forcefeed carcinogenic lemonade to the software industry.
This might be a tad offtopic but anyway, a while ago I was wondering how a big OSS project (like Apache) does a license change? If there are dozens of people involved who have contributed their work to the project under license X, wouldn't you need to ask each and every one of those people if you want to change that license in any way?
Mozilla Firebird 0.7 (Gecko/20031103) here; and I definitely have this problem. I'd say approximately every fifth view of a Slashdot page only the menu on the left and the page header appear. Refreshing once or twice normally solves the problem.
I don't blame the Gecko engine for this but rather the Slashdot HTML which fails to validate as any version of HTML.
I don't get it. I truly don't believe that ideas are as valuable as you make them out to be.
I value the hard work of the implementor much more than the guy who happened to patent an idea that has probably been thought of by dozens of other smart guys but who aren't so egotistical to think that they are the first ever to imagine it.
I'd like to see a software patent that is truly innovative. But I don't believe one exists. Take the patent you applied for from your Liquid Audio days. From the description, it sounds like a good idea. Bravo. You had a good idea. Do you really think that you are the only one who ever had a similar idea? Let alone the first? If you do, you just don't "get it."