On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 05:01 -0700, Roy T. Fielding wrote: > > Discussions regarding the Web Security situation on legal-discuss have > > revealed that IBM have provided a "patent license" to Apache for this > > particular project. However, in the opinions of at least one lawyer, > > any > > derivative work beyond "minor bugfixes" will require an explicit patent > > grant from IBM. I've joined that discussion half-way through, so can't > > say much more until I have time to trawl through the whole thread. > > However this just doesn't fit with my idea of open source. > > That's because the conversation consists of a bunch of nonsensical > questions asked of a lawyer who is trying to figure out what on earth > the person is asking. IBM has a set of licenses to Apache in the > forms of CLAs that apply to any project in which IBM contributes, > a larger number of blanket patent grants to any open source project > (I have no idea if these are included since no actual patents have > been claimed), and a blanket reciprocal patent license that applies > in all other cases. > > Every line of java code is covered by at least two patents and > usually dozens more that may or may not be licensed. Asking if they > exist is a completely irrelevant question. We only care about > patents that are being actively enforced without an RF license. > > > Given this, it would be nice to know that the Beehive project doesn't > > have any such situation (ie patent license explicitly granted to Apache > > but *not* to derivative works) before promotion out of the sandbox > > occurs. > > Derivative works is a definition from COPYRIGHT law. It is totally > irrelevant *unless* the patent license is explicitly limited to > unmodified works. The Apache CLA is a patent license from the > contributor to all recipients of the ASF software -- whether or > not the software changes is irrelevant because the license is > given to the people, not to lines of code.
Just for general information, Jeffrey Thompson has given a nice summary of the general situation with WSS4J (and in a very amusing manner). Larry Rosen has followed up with an interesting set of questions phrased in the appropriate legal terms. Larry's questions cover roughly the same ground I was asking, so my questions weren't completely "nonsensical". Clearly the issues about patent grants and derivative works are not clear at the moment. However from what I can see (and from the replies on this thread) this particular discussion does not impact the Beehive project. See the email of Sat, 16 Jul 2005 on legal-discuss with subject "IBM and Apache": http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200507.mbox/% [EMAIL PROTECTED] Regards, Simon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
