3 ms·

eli5 me please

jcranmer 10y ago
The current license is effectively the MIT license, which lets downstream developers repackage the code for development works to do what they want, with the most important boilerplate being the part that says "we're not legally liable if this software causes problems." The biggest flaw of MIT-like licenses is their silence on patent issues, compilers unfortunately being one of the cases where patents are indeed an issue (SEH and Steensgards being two major things well-known as being under patent). Legal opinions differ on what the effect is, and some companies with more aggressive legal departments are twitchy about the matter. The Apache license covers patents in a satisfactory way while still retaining the permissibility of the MIT license. However, Apache and GPL aren't necessarily compatible with each other--Apache v2 and GPLv3 work around it by adding explicit compatibility clauses. The Apache v2/GPLv2 compatibility story is something that legal opinions differ on [1]. The exceptions being proposed are designed to explicitly guarantee compatibility between the two licenses. [1] The consensus seems to be that it would just work. However, it is worth keeping in mind that Apple is a prominent contributor to LLVM, and Apple does seem to generally take a more pessimistic legal approach, as well as being very well-known for their abhorrence of GPLv3 code.
- ndesaulniers 10y ago
  > SEH and Steensgards What's that?
  - starseeker 10y ago
    Google turns up these: https://www.google.com/patents/US5628016 https://www.google.com/patents/US5628016 https://www.google.com/patents/US6247169 https://www.google.com/patents/US6247169 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070016894A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070016894A1 I'm not sure about the last one since it's an apparently abandoned application rather than a granted patent... Interestingly, US6247169 reports "lapsed" on the google page due to non-payment of fees... I'm really not sure what to make of US5628016 - it's filing date is in 1994, but there's a report of a 2015 "Assignment" legal event. (edit - fixed links)
  - josteink 10y ago
    SEH probably refers to Structured Exception Handling.
  - jabl 10y ago
    You already got answers for SEH. For Steensgard, see the paper at https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/pingali/CS380C/2007fa/papers/steensgard.pdf https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/pingali/CS380C/2007fa/papers... (no idea about the patent itself, but the paper is probably easier to read).

eli5 me please

The current license is effectively the MIT license, which lets downstream developers repackage the code for development works to do what they want, with the most important boilerplate being the part that says "we're not legally liable if this software causes problems." The biggest flaw of MIT-like licenses is their silence on patent issues, compilers unfortunately being one of the cases where patents are indeed an issue (SEH and Steensgards being two major things well-known as being under patent). Legal opinions differ on what the effect is, and some companies with more aggressive legal departments are twitchy about the matter. The Apache license covers patents in a satisfactory way while still retaining the permissibility of the MIT license. However, Apache and GPL aren't necessarily compatible with each other--Apache v2 and GPLv3 work around it by adding explicit compatibility clauses. The Apache v2/GPLv2 compatibility story is something that legal opinions differ on [1]. The exceptions being proposed are designed to explicitly guarantee compatibility between the two licenses. [1] The consensus seems to be that it would just work. However, it is worth keeping in mind that Apple is a prominent contributor to LLVM, and Apple does seem to generally take a more pessimistic legal approach, as well as being very well-known for their abhorrence of GPLv3 code.

ndesaulniers 10y ago
> SEH and Steensgards What's that?
- starseeker 10y ago
  Google turns up these: https://www.google.com/patents/US5628016 https://www.google.com/patents/US5628016 https://www.google.com/patents/US6247169 https://www.google.com/patents/US6247169 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070016894A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070016894A1 I'm not sure about the last one since it's an apparently abandoned application rather than a granted patent... Interestingly, US6247169 reports "lapsed" on the google page due to non-payment of fees... I'm really not sure what to make of US5628016 - it's filing date is in 1994, but there's a report of a 2015 "Assignment" legal event. (edit - fixed links)
- josteink 10y ago
  SEH probably refers to Structured Exception Handling.
- jabl 10y ago
  You already got answers for SEH. For Steensgard, see the paper at https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/pingali/CS380C/2007fa/papers/steensgard.pdf https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/pingali/CS380C/2007fa/papers... (no idea about the patent itself, but the paper is probably easier to read).