Larry, Dave Rudin is in the group of supporters I meet with, and we've discussed this. Are the W3C meetings you mentioned the ones I attended? I lost support after I left HP.
Thanks Bruce On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 1:02 PM Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com> wrote: > Bruce, > > > > I support your efforts for open standards and royalty-free patents. > However, a couple of warnings for OSI over-reach in these areas. You are > not alone. Please incorporate our own previous efforts, with the support of > attorneys from many software companies and foundations, toward those goals. > This can be a community effort. > > > > 1. The very term "open standards" causes diarrhea in some quarters. One of > Linux Foundations' attorneys, for example, once irately walked out of my > talk on that subject because his law firm supports RAND "for some > standards." The standards organization OASIS had to allow all of > "royalty-free," "RAND" and "FRAND" for their standards, although most of > their standards are now royalty-free anyway. And IETF refuses to define the > term at all, although they require patent notices from contributors, for > whatever that may be worth. I know from personal experience that standards > participants are often afraid of free donations of their patents. This is a > world-wide issue. I look forward to your report about your own interactions > with those folks. > > > > 2. The term "royalty-free patents" was the subject of several years' > debate at W3C. I was then an invited expert from OSI to advocate for the > open source community. We won a great patent license model for open > standards. It has since been widely accepted by the software industry. Its > *10-item > definition of royalty-free patent licenses* was written by our W3C > committee with excellent advice from some of the attorneys on this > license-discuss@ list from those companies. We are all proud! I recommend > that model for incorporation – in some way, perhaps by reference – with the > OSD. > > > > 3. I then worked for several years with David Rudin from Microsoft and > representatives from others in the software and open source communities in > the Open Web Foundation (OWF). Our "open specification" licenses, which > incorporated the best from the OSD and the W3C definitions, are posted on > that website. Please feel free to add us as supporters for your own OSI > efforts. > > > > I'll take the flak from that irate attorney a few years ago by using this > phrase: "We want open standards, with royalty-free patents, for open source > software." > > > > /Larry > > > > P.S. You said you didn't want to participate in this discussion "when it > features conflation of the license under consideration with other > licenses." That is the entire purpose of "license-discuss@" rather than > "license-review@". I am obeying Simon Phipps and others when I moved this > discussion here. Indeed, it is a great place to discuss open standards, > royalty-free patents, and lots of open source software issues, before OSI > acts on its own. > > > > > > > > *From:* License-discuss <license-discuss-boun...@lists.opensource.org> *On > Behalf Of *Bruce Perens > *Sent:* Saturday, November 10, 2018 12:56 AM > *To:* license-discuss@lists.opensource.org > *Subject:* Re: [License-discuss] Open source software licenses and the OSD > > > > Nicholas, > > > > No problem. OSI is fighting in the standards arena and the EU with very > well-funded entities that insist that Open Source is only about copyright > and wish to assert their royalties on standard-essential patents when there > is an Open Source implementation. The way they have gone about it would > astound you, but we'll save that for another forum. Freedom is not just > about copyright, and any time someone seems to imply that OSI or the OSD is > just about copyright, I'll push back, even if that implication wasn't > really their intent. > > > > I am not otherwise participating in a lot of this discussion when it > features conflation of the license under consideration with other licenses > authored by the discussion participants. I understand the authors are upset > about those licenses, this just isn't the place. > > > > I thought Bradley had good points, though. > > > > Thanks > > > > Bruce > > > > On Fri, Nov 9, 2018 at 4:15 PM Nicholas Matthew Neft Weinstock < > nwein...@qti.qualcomm.com> wrote: > > Hi Bruce, > > > > I’m sorry, I think there’s a disconnect. > > > > I read Larry’s statement to be about the definition of Open Source > Software, but you’re referring to standards and patents in standards. I > didn’t intend to get into a discussion of standards. > > > > I don’t have a problem with Open Source Licenses that have a royalty-free > Patent license as one of the license grants, and therefore requires a > royalty-free Patent license from Contributors. This makes complete sense. > I’m simply saying that it’s impractical to expect a project maintainer to > conclusively state that *nobody* has royalty-bearing claims. For Patents > and Trademarks, at most, they can only make that claim about Contributors’ > claims. > > > > It wouldn’t be fair for Disney to contribute a picture of Mickey Mouse to > a project and then sue for Trademark violation. But if a random > Contributor adds a picture of Mickey Mouse to a project, Disney can still > enforce their Trademark. > > > > An interesting example of this (for Patents) is the Opus codec. If you > look at the bottom of their license page (http://opus-codec.org/license/), > they indicate that they actually made the effort to have outside counsel > evaluate potential 3rd party patents, and provide the results. How many > Open Source projects would be willing to do this, let alone have the > financial backing to afford it? Or conduct a worldwide search of > registered Trademarks? And even in the case of Opus, they only cite > analysis of patents disclosed by four companies to the associated standards > organization (IETF). What if there are other companies with (possibly) > relevant patents that didn’t make disclosures to the IETF? What if someone > contributed a picture of the cartoon penguin to use as the codec’s mascot? > > > > On the other hand, an open source project can make the claim that there > are no royalty-bearing Copyright claims, because the only Copyright claims > covering the project are from Contributors. > > > > Thanks, > > Nick > > > > Bruce Perens wrote: > > I am the standards chair of OSI. We are indeed concerned with patents in > standards, and we spend a lot of time and money on the issue. We assert > that the OSD terms apply to patents as well as copyright. > > > > Thanks > > > > Bruce > > > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@lists.opensource.org > > http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@lists.opensource.org > > http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org >
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