From the analysis by Christopher below, it would seem that a
rather small addition/modification in the standard EPL could
enable academic/research institutions to actively participate in
Eclipse open-source projects. Whereas the current EPL patent
clause seems to prohibit that.
Personally I don't understand such legal details, but the issue
encountered for UC Berkeley is probably widely applicable to many
more US institutions (and European ones as well I guess). And it
would seem that the Science IWG is specifically impacted by this
as we're targeting research/academic instutions a.o.
Is there a way forward to allow projects of the Science IWG to
adapt such a modified license with approval from the Eclipse
Foundation?
-------- Doorgestuurd bericht --------
It seems that dual licensing will not solve UC's problem with
the EPL.
Some projects at Berkeley were able to use the Educational
Community License, Version 2.0 (ECL-2.0), which says:
"The Educational Community License version 2.0 ("ECL")
consists of the Apache 2.0 license, modified to change the
scope of the patent grant in section 3 to be specific to the
needs of the education communities using this license. The
original Apache 2.0 license can be found at: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"
Section 3 is:
"3. Grant of Patent License.
"Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each
Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide,
non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except
as stated in this section) patent license to make, have
made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise
transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those
patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are
necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by
combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which
such Contribution(s) was submitted. 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. Any
patent license granted hereby with respect to contributions
by an individu al employed by an institution or organization
is limited to patent claims where the individual that is the
author of the Work is also the inventor of the patent claims
licensed, and where the organization or institution has the
right to grant such license under applicable grant and
research funding agreements. No other express or implied
licenses are granted."
If the Eclipse Foundation and UC were able to agree on a
similar license that was based on the EPL, then perhaps
Triquetrum could have a single license, and organizations like
UC Berkeley could join the Eclipse Foundation. I realize that
having Eclipse adopt a different license for some packages is
not very practical and not very likely. In addition, the
patent clause in the EPL provides a modicum of protection for
the users of the EPL-licensed software. Modifying the EPL to
be like the ECL reduces that protection, which is also
probably not palatable.
The downside is that UC won't agree to the the EPL as is,
which means that UC cannot join the Eclipse Foundation. This
means that we are losing an opportunity to train students in
how to directly collaborate as a part of their organization
with the open source community. Yes, UC students, staff and
faculty may sign Individual Committer Agreements as a
workaround, but we are missing out on an opportunity.
I don't think there is much else to be done here, so I'll
close this issue in a few days if there is no further
discussion.
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