4 ms·

What you are saying contradicts what is posted here: https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet ".NET open source projects typica

What you are saying contradicts what is posted here: https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet ".NET open source projects typically use either the MIT or Apache 2 licenses for code. Some projects license documentation and other forms of content under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. See specific projects to understand the license used."

pron 12y ago
Well, they "use" the licenses and then amend them considerably (those licenses grant you patent use permissions, while Microsoft doesn't). The licenses are still there, only with a nice juicy amendment on the side, which basically says: "You know all those permissions granted to you by the license? Well, were taking most of them away now, thank you". The legal instrument by which those permissions are taken away is patents, which is actually worse than copyright because patents are sneaky. See those DannyBee comments I linked to for an explanation. In any case, Facebook does something similar with React which also "uses" the BSD license, except not really, which is why Google, for example, have already said they can't use Facebook's open-source projects. Facebook keeps the project open source, except adds an unrelated auto-destruct mechanism; the CLR isn't even really open source (because you don't have permission to freely modify the code or derive from it). I don't know which is worse...
- cwyers 12y ago
  The DannyBee comments you linked are entirely about Facebook, React and the BSD license. They are not about Microsoft, the CLR and the MIT license. At any rate -- the MIT license for CLR is not amended. The patent grant is separate from, not an amendment to, the MIT license.
  - pron 12y ago
    Amendments are often separate. But call it what you like, the MIT license includes an unconditional (implicit) patent grant, which MS takes away.
    - wvenable 12y ago
      Microsoft's patent promise does not override the MIT license. Whether or not the MIT license implies a patent grant is an open question not yet tested in court. If that unconditional (implicit) patent grant succeeds in court then Microsoft's patent promise is unnecessary. If that fails in court, then the patent promise protects compatible implementations (like Mono).
      - pron 12y ago
        IANAL, but DannyBee is, and he says (re. Facebook and a BSD license, but it's the same thing): This grants an implied patent license to the patents necessary to actually do this, as long as you meet the restrictions... This is actually well-settled law. You don't get to give people stuff unrestricted, and say "you can use this for free", and then say "just kidding, what i meant was, you can use this for free as long as you pay me for the patents" However, when you do what facebook has done, and give an explicit license, you have overwritten the terms of that implied license, and you get no implied license. So it is not only "not unambiguously safer", you are not "left with the same rights you had under the bsd license if it is revoked". This is because if you revoke the explicit grant, you get nothing in terms of patents. But the implicit grant is not revokable unless you violate the copyright license. most engineers are not familiar with implied patent licenses. BSD normally carries one. So you do in fact, get a implied grant. By doing this [i.e. have an explicit patent grant] you don't, you only get the explicit grant. The implied grant is normally not revocable unless the underlying BSD terms are violated, whereas the explicit grant is revocable for other reasons. To summarize, it is well-settled law that an open source license carries a patent grant, unless that grant is restricted by an explicit one (which supersedes the implicit grant as it amends the license). The restrictive MS patent grant is therefore not in addition to, but instead of the implicit promise. It seems like Google's legal department is also under the impression that this is settled law, as they've said they cannot use React and other open source Facebook projects because they contain a restricted, explicit patent grant, while they do use projects without them.
        cwyers 12y ago
        You forgot to quote this part: > The reason people use explicit patent grants is to avoid getting into some unsettled law. Particularly, the sublicensability of implied patent licenses is not clear. The TL;DR of this is "the answer is clear if you get the software directly from person owning the patents. If you get it through someone else, like say, a linux distribution, it's not clear what happens". The related doctrine of "patent exhaustion" that plays into this is also not settled, and currently the subject of a Supreme Court cert petition by Cisco.

pron 12y ago

Well, they "use" the licenses and then amend them considerably (those licenses grant you patent use permissions, while Microsoft doesn't). The licenses are still there, only with a nice juicy amendment on the side, which basically says: "You know all those permissions granted to you by the license? Well, were taking most of them away now, thank you". The legal instrument by which those permissions are taken away is patents, which is actually worse than copyright because patents are sneaky. See those DannyBee comments I linked to for an explanation. In any case, Facebook does something similar with React which also "uses" the BSD license, except not really, which is why Google, for example, have already said they can't use Facebook's open-source projects. Facebook keeps the project open source, except adds an unrelated auto-destruct mechanism; the CLR isn't even really open source (because you don't have permission to freely modify the code or derive from it). I don't know which is worse...

cwyers 12y ago
The DannyBee comments you linked are entirely about Facebook, React and the BSD license. They are not about Microsoft, the CLR and the MIT license. At any rate -- the MIT license for CLR is not amended. The patent grant is separate from, not an amendment to, the MIT license.
- pron 12y ago
  Amendments are often separate. But call it what you like, the MIT license includes an unconditional (implicit) patent grant, which MS takes away.
  - wvenable 12y ago
    Microsoft's patent promise does not override the MIT license. Whether or not the MIT license implies a patent grant is an open question not yet tested in court. If that unconditional (implicit) patent grant succeeds in court then Microsoft's patent promise is unnecessary. If that fails in court, then the patent promise protects compatible implementations (like Mono).
    - pron 12y ago
      IANAL, but DannyBee is, and he says (re. Facebook and a BSD license, but it's the same thing): This grants an implied patent license to the patents necessary to actually do this, as long as you meet the restrictions... This is actually well-settled law. You don't get to give people stuff unrestricted, and say "you can use this for free", and then say "just kidding, what i meant was, you can use this for free as long as you pay me for the patents" However, when you do what facebook has done, and give an explicit license, you have overwritten the terms of that implied license, and you get no implied license. So it is not only "not unambiguously safer", you are not "left with the same rights you had under the bsd license if it is revoked". This is because if you revoke the explicit grant, you get nothing in terms of patents. But the implicit grant is not revokable unless you violate the copyright license. most engineers are not familiar with implied patent licenses. BSD normally carries one. So you do in fact, get a implied grant. By doing this [i.e. have an explicit patent grant] you don't, you only get the explicit grant. The implied grant is normally not revocable unless the underlying BSD terms are violated, whereas the explicit grant is revocable for other reasons. To summarize, it is well-settled law that an open source license carries a patent grant, unless that grant is restricted by an explicit one (which supersedes the implicit grant as it amends the license). The restrictive MS patent grant is therefore not in addition to, but instead of the implicit promise. It seems like Google's legal department is also under the impression that this is settled law, as they've said they cannot use React and other open source Facebook projects because they contain a restricted, explicit patent grant, while they do use projects without them.
      - cwyers 12y ago
        You forgot to quote this part: > The reason people use explicit patent grants is to avoid getting into some unsettled law. Particularly, the sublicensability of implied patent licenses is not clear. The TL;DR of this is "the answer is clear if you get the software directly from person owning the patents. If you get it through someone else, like say, a linux distribution, it's not clear what happens". The related doctrine of "patent exhaustion" that plays into this is also not settled, and currently the subject of a Supreme Court cert petition by Cisco.