fenics team mailing list archive

[Johan Hake <johan.hake@xxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting!

I will check this out,

Johan

On Friday February 18 2011 08:00:16 David Ham wrote:
> There might be an escape from this. If UCSD's problem is with the patent
> clause in (L)GPL, you could instead ask if you might be allowed to
> provide code under the BSD licence. The BSD license has no patent clause
> so hopefully they will find it acceptable. It was also originally
> written by the University of California so presumably they're OK with it.
> 
> The point is that BSD is (L)GPL compatible so it is legally possible to
> incorporate BSD code in LGPL code and distribute the resulting code as
> LGPL. I think this fixes the problem.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David
> 
> On 15/02/11 01:13, Johan Hake wrote:
> > 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.shtm
> >>>>>>>>   l
> >>>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>>> 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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