fenics team mailing list archive

[Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2011 at 05:37:38PM -0600, Andy Ray Terrel wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:37 PM, Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 09, 2011 at 10:23:44AM -0800, Johan Hake wrote:
> >> On Wednesday February 9 2011 10:14:51 Johan Hake wrote:
> >> > On Wednesday February 9 2011 10:10:04 Anders Logg wrote:
> >> > > On Wed, Feb 09, 2011 at 09:52:21AM -0800, Johan Hake wrote:
> >> > > > Hello!
> >> > > >
> >> > > > UCSD is not willing to sign the consent statement about GPL 3...
> >> > > >
> >> > > > From the answer I got:
> >> > > >   LGPL incorporates GPL 3, and that is the problem. Earlier versions of
> >> > > >   the GPL did not deal in patent rights, while Version 3 does. It would
> >> > > >   commit a license to the entire UC patent estate, whether the
> >> > > >   inventors were an informed participant or not. I would need to
> >> > > >   consult further with UC General Counsel for a detailed answer, but
> >> > > >   the spirit is that the license overreaches in its commitments to
> >> > > >   patent rights beyond what the university is willing to do.
> >> > >
> >> > > That seems strange. So UCSD will want to retain the right to sue users
> >> > > of DOLFIN if you should happen to add code to DOLFIN that infringes on
> >> > > some patent held by UCSD?
> >> >
> >> > I have no clue what it means. But I will ask.
> >>
> >> Here is a more elaborated explaination:
> >>
> >>   The language is pretty clear in section 11 of the GPL V3 license - it
> >>   commits all the rights of the Licensor (the Regents of the University of
> >>   California) to a license. Our normal licensing practice is to license one
> >>   technology at a time, and we do not license the other patents along with it.
> >>   Our guiding principles for licensing are at this link
> >>
> >>   <http://invent.ucsd.edu/faculty/policies/guiding-principles.shtml>
> >>
> >> Johan
> >
> > Is it this paragraph?
> >
> >  "Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free
> >  patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to
> >  make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and
> >  propagate the contents of its contributor version."
> >
> > Assuming that something in your contract makes UCSD the "contributor"
> > and not you personally, this means that UCSD grants any patent
> > licenses needed to run the code that you put into FEniCS.
> >
> > The other option is to reserve the right to sue the users of FEniCS
> > for any UCSD patents that your code in FEnICS is infringing upon.
> >
> > As far as I understand, it doesn't say anything about other patents
> > that UCSD have that are unrelated to the actual code in FEniCS.
> >
> > If they refuse to sign the consent form, will they also refuse to let
> > you continue to contribute code to FEniCS? And sue us all for the code
> > you have contributed so far?
> >
> >
>
> In the US, code and patentable "Intellectual Property" is usually
> considered property of the employer.  So the contributor has no right
> to give away the rights of a company's patents.  If they sign this
> form and Johan uploads something covered under another patent then it
> affects their rights to patent royalties.  So in effect they are
> saying they reserve the right to sue FEniCS (but probably Simula) if
> you encroach on their patents.
>
> In practice, most open source code from US universities is distributed
> without regard to the law and for the most part everyone ignores it.
> For example, TTI-C should be the copyright holder on much of the code
> that you wrote in Chicago.

I haven't checked with TTI yet but expect it will be ok. We discussed
licensing and GPL when I was there and got the message that everything
was a-ok.

--
Anders


> -- Andy
>
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> > > > Are there any others that have got a similare answer?
> >> > >
> >> > > No problems so far. Here's what we have so far:
> >> > >   http://www.fenicsproject.org/pub/copyright/authors/
> >> > >   http://www.fenicsproject.org/pub/copyright/institutions/
> >> >
> >> > I guess the Cambridge statement is not correct?
> >> >
> >> > Johan
> >> >
> >> >
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>
>