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Both of the licenses used in LLVM contain the following clause: > Permission is hereby granted... to deal with the Software without restriction, including...

Both of the licenses used in LLVM contain the following clause: > Permission is hereby granted... to deal with the Software without restriction, including... the rights to... sublicense The effect of this clause is that all LLVM contributors have already consented to a chance in license, whether that change is done by you, me, Debian, or the Pope. The only question is whether the LLVM organization wishes to exercise this authority itself. It's clear that the majority of the key contributors are in favor of it, so it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point.

mgkimsal 10y ago
Does 'sublicensing' imply a change in the license terms? I wouldn't think so, but IANAL.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  Well to cite an actual IP attorney [0], yes. A sublicense means that you (the licensee / sublicensor) grant somebody else (the sublicensee) the right to use the software, and you can do it under any terms you are permitted by the grant of sublicense. The MIT/NCSA do place some restrictions on sublicenses ("subject to the following conditions") but I don't see any reason why the Apache license would present a problem as the choice of sublicense. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice. [0] http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...
johncolanduoni 10y ago
The whole reason that this license change is coming up is that some people in the project (and I assume Apple as well) want to provide some level of protection from patent infringement cases for the users of LLVM. The ability to sublicense doesn't help here because the patent clause in the Apache 2.0 license would only apply to the patents owned by you, the one who is doing the sub-licensing. They want these protections to apply to the patents of any of the authors of LLVM, which of course cannot be done without their consent.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  There is debate about to what extent patent protection is already extant in the current licenses. One example, the MIT has > to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software The word "patent" does not appear here, but the words "use" and "distribute" seem to imply the granting of rights necessary to achieve those ends (of which a limited patent license would be one), and the phrase "deal in the software without restriction" is a statement so broad that it seems difficult to argue a patent license (and perhaps many future IP innovations unknown to us today) was not granted by the rules of equitable estoppel. The reason for this license change is to resolve the ambiguity that arises because the word "patent" does not appear as a word in this clause. It was found that the GPLv2 did not grant patent rights because it was not mentioned in that license [0], although the circumstances of that case and the text of the MIT are far apart. As a result of all this LLVM may go around and get people to sign off on the Apache grant but it is likely to be under the banner of "clarifying" an implied patent grant rather than establishing a new one. Depending on how worried the lawyers are about the legal meaning of "deal in the Software without restriction" they may not be worried about the contributors they are unable to track down. [0] See https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/potential_defenses.pdf https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/potential_defenses.... for an analysis of the GPLv2 situation
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    You're correct, I should have said better patent protection, not patent protection at all.

mgkimsal 10y ago

Does 'sublicensing' imply a change in the license terms? I wouldn't think so, but IANAL.

drewcrawford 10y ago
Well to cite an actual IP attorney [0], yes. A sublicense means that you (the licensee / sublicensor) grant somebody else (the sublicensee) the right to use the software, and you can do it under any terms you are permitted by the grant of sublicense. The MIT/NCSA do place some restrictions on sublicenses ("subject to the following conditions") but I don't see any reason why the Apache license would present a problem as the choice of sublicense. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice. [0] http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...

johncolanduoni 10y ago

The whole reason that this license change is coming up is that some people in the project (and I assume Apple as well) want to provide some level of protection from patent infringement cases for the users of LLVM. The ability to sublicense doesn't help here because the patent clause in the Apache 2.0 license would only apply to the patents owned by you, the one who is doing the sub-licensing. They want these protections to apply to the patents of any of the authors of LLVM, which of course cannot be done without their consent.

drewcrawford 10y ago
There is debate about to what extent patent protection is already extant in the current licenses. One example, the MIT has > to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software The word "patent" does not appear here, but the words "use" and "distribute" seem to imply the granting of rights necessary to achieve those ends (of which a limited patent license would be one), and the phrase "deal in the software without restriction" is a statement so broad that it seems difficult to argue a patent license (and perhaps many future IP innovations unknown to us today) was not granted by the rules of equitable estoppel. The reason for this license change is to resolve the ambiguity that arises because the word "patent" does not appear as a word in this clause. It was found that the GPLv2 did not grant patent rights because it was not mentioned in that license [0], although the circumstances of that case and the text of the MIT are far apart. As a result of all this LLVM may go around and get people to sign off on the Apache grant but it is likely to be under the banner of "clarifying" an implied patent grant rather than establishing a new one. Depending on how worried the lawyers are about the legal meaning of "deal in the Software without restriction" they may not be worried about the contributors they are unable to track down. [0] See https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/potential_defenses.pdf https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/potential_defenses.... for an analysis of the GPLv2 situation
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  You're correct, I should have said better patent protection, not patent protection at all.