4 ms·
Many OSS licences include some sort of provision for patents. See for example here the Apache licence: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licen
by anewhnaccount 10y ago
Many OSS licences include some sort of provision for patents. See for example here the Apache licence: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences#Apache_License_2.0 http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences...
- slimsag 10y agoNeat! Thank you a ton for linking me to this page! I've never seen it before. According to this, then, Apache v2.0, GPL v3, and MPL 2.0 are the only (well known) licenses with explicit patent grants. It also mentions that there is an 'implicit' patent grant provided by the revised BSD license[1] but that it has never been tested in court (which I presume means it is not advised). I guess Apache 2.0 (or if you're a copyleft kind of guy, GPL3) is the way to go! [1] http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences#Implicit_grants http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences...
- technomancy 10y agoThe Eclipse Public License is a bit obscure off the JVM, but it actually has a good patent clause too.