Not a lawyer, but MIT/BSD ignore patents,
(software patents IIRC didn't exist when these licenses were created)
whereas Apache2 provides indemnity against any users from related patent suits by contributors.
(Sort of 'copylefting' associated patents, in a limited sense)
This isn't really an 'edge case' at scale - many large tech entities have patents.
Again, not a lawyer, I'd suspect this is 'best' here for adoptors of software using this license at smaller firms because lawyers reading the license know they are clearly protected from patent litigation by other contributors - that doesn't necessarily imply it's best overall - e.g. large companies with a large patent portfolio which is largely unrelated might not wish to even theoretically weaken their ability to use patents, or this might be a block to software adaptation/contribution due to bureaucratic reasons (e.g. all licenses must be approved by legal, who won't consider anything that mucks with their patents, even if it's not an issue here).
Further, there is potential for the patent indemnity clause to make litigation murky - for example, if a patent is covered by this license, but a user further expands the code in an 'infringing' capacity, or infringes elsewhere, the indemnity provided by the base code might protect them against litigation where it is actually warranted..
Probably some things on the flip side too - e.g. by accepting the indemnity clause, you might be recognizing the validity of the customers patent which could then be applied elsewhere against you, etc.
And as best I know (again, not lawyer and not up on details here) there isn't much case law around these licenses to clarify the murkyness.
Again, not a lawyer at all, but 'best' is dubious - I do have a preference for the BSD/MIT because they avoid this whole quagmire - although I'm somewhat anti-software patents for most cases, and licenses such as this also legitimize them, the biggest thing for me here is that this clause makes the 'free use' of the software itself much more dubious and less clear cut.
It would be interesting to have some more fine-grained information about biases/perspectives/rationales in this survey to help quantify the summary data..
> Further, there is potential for the patent indemnity clause to make litigation murky - for example, if a patent is covered by this license, but a user further expands the code in an 'infringing' capacity, or infringes elsewhere, the indemnity provided by the base code might protect them against litigation where it is actually warranted..
Yeah, this is an issue with Apache 2 License. Say, the user can take only the patented code (and modify to meet his/her needs) and keep the rest of the code to have any license (including proprietary), and the user is at the safe side.
In the case the code is licensed under GNU [A]GPLv3, the whole (modified and linked) code requires to be in [A]GPLv3. So no non-free derivations possible. If the user didn't free the code, the original author (who owns the patent AND wrote the [A]GPLv3 code) can sue the user (because the user has violated GNU [A]GPL).
Not a lawyer, but MIT/BSD ignore patents, (software patents IIRC didn't exist when these licenses were created)
whereas Apache2 provides indemnity against any users from related patent suits by contributors.
(Sort of 'copylefting' associated patents, in a limited sense)
This isn't really an 'edge case' at scale - many large tech entities have patents.
Again, not a lawyer, I'd suspect this is 'best' here for adoptors of software using this license at smaller firms because lawyers reading the license know they are clearly protected from patent litigation by other contributors - that doesn't necessarily imply it's best overall - e.g. large companies with a large patent portfolio which is largely unrelated might not wish to even theoretically weaken their ability to use patents, or this might be a block to software adaptation/contribution due to bureaucratic reasons (e.g. all licenses must be approved by legal, who won't consider anything that mucks with their patents, even if it's not an issue here).
Further, there is potential for the patent indemnity clause to make litigation murky - for example, if a patent is covered by this license, but a user further expands the code in an 'infringing' capacity, or infringes elsewhere, the indemnity provided by the base code might protect them against litigation where it is actually warranted..
Probably some things on the flip side too - e.g. by accepting the indemnity clause, you might be recognizing the validity of the customers patent which could then be applied elsewhere against you, etc.
And as best I know (again, not lawyer and not up on details here) there isn't much case law around these licenses to clarify the murkyness.
Again, not a lawyer at all, but 'best' is dubious - I do have a preference for the BSD/MIT because they avoid this whole quagmire - although I'm somewhat anti-software patents for most cases, and licenses such as this also legitimize them, the biggest thing for me here is that this clause makes the 'free use' of the software itself much more dubious and less clear cut.
It would be interesting to have some more fine-grained information about biases/perspectives/rationales in this survey to help quantify the summary data..