Leaving aside the debate about user data, I think the CAL is an extremely well crafted license. But I do have some questions about the patent termination clause. The same paragraph was present in the first beta, but I just noticed it now.
The CAL says (emphasis mine): If You initiate litigation *against Licensor, or any Recipient of the Work*, > either direct or indirect, asserting that the Work directly or indirectly > infringes any patent, *then all permissions* granted to You by this > License *shall terminate*. In the event of termination due to litigation, > all permissions validly granted by You under this License, directly or > indirectly, shall survive termination. Administrative review procedures, > declaratory judgment actions, and *counterclaims* in response to patent > litigation *do not cause termination *due to litigation. > This differs in important points from the similar clause in Apache 2 (emphasis mine): If You institute patent litigation *against any entity* (*including a > cross-claim or counterclaim* in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a > Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or > contributory patent infringement, *then any patent licenses* granted to > You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such > litigation is filed. For reference, the corresponding part in GPLv3: > […] you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or > counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by > making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any > portion of it. > Summary of differences between CAL and Apache 2: - Apache discourages patent litigation against any entity, CAL only against parties to the license. These groups are not necessarily identical if the patent is incorporated in a differently-licensed contribution that's used by multiple programs, and the patent litigation addresses an unrelated program using the same contribution. - CAL's termination only triggers when patent litigation is *initiated*, Apache also discourages counterclaims that assert that the Work is infringing. Here, the CAL has weaker protections. - CAL terminates all licensed rights (incl. copyright licenses), Apache only the patent licenses. Here, the CAL has stronger protections against aggressors. Given these differences, it seems that Apache 2 might not be a Compatible Open Source license for the CAL. - What is your take on these differences? - What is the rationale for allowing counterclaims that assert that the CAL-covered software is infringing? - Is this incompatibility intended? Without access to the Apache 2 ecosystem, it would be much more difficult to create CAL-covered software.
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