I think it's fair to say that patent grants in open-source licenses can be roughly divided into two groups:
- narrowly-scoped (i.e. applies just to the contributed code, examples: EPL, BSD+Patent) - widely-scoped (applies to the whole program as it existed at the time of the contibution, examples: GPLv3, UPL) In which group does the Apache License 2.0 fall? To me, it seems that the wording of its patent grant is ambiguous: "where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted" "Combination" could mean either "the act of combining" (that would put it in the "narrow" group) or "something formed by combining" (that would imply the "wide" scope). The FAQ[1] doesn't help because it uses the same wording. Curiously, it seems that the licenses created after APLv2 was published tend to use much more explicit wording. Could it mean that their authors have also noticed that issue? [1] - https://www.apache.org/foundation/license-faq.html _______________________________________________ The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address. License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
