fenics team mailing list archive

[Johan Hake <johan.hake@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday February 9 2011 19:37:10 Ridgway Scott wrote:
> I suspect this will be a general problem at all U.S. Universities.

Yeah, I pretty much have stalled here. Their final answer was:

  What the institution is being asked to sign is consent that the
  institution's IP be licensed under the LGPL V3. We do not consent to that,
  for the reasons I've been giving you. I don't know if I can make it any less
  complicated than that.

They did not answer my "what with the already contributed code" question 
either. But then I am not sure I want to know the answer. Maybe it is best to 
give up to get the consent from UCSD and let silence test the system?

Johan


> Ridg
> 
> On Feb 9, 2011, at 7:28 PM, Johan Hake wrote:
> > On Wednesday February 9 2011 18:23:51 Andy Ray Terrel wrote:
> >> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Johan Hake <johan.hake@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> 
> >> wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday February 9 2011 15:37:38 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?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Anders
> >>>> 
> >>>> 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.
> >>> 
> >>> Does your university have the same policies? I guess I should just
> >>> kept
> >>> quite then...
> >> 
> >> I'm still waiting for word back from my department, but my
> >> contributions are so small that I don't think there could be any
> >> claims from my employer.
> > 
> > Would it be a point to collect what I have done during the stay here
> > at UCSD,
> > and hopefully show that there wont be anything to claim? Most of my
> > work in
> > FEniCS I did when I was at Simula.
> > 
> > Johan
> > 
> >> -- Andy
> >> 
> >>> Johan
> >>> 
> >>>> -- 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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> >>>>> 
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