Comment by mjg59 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjg59 | Hacker News Reader

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Version 2 of the Apple Public Source License includes the following termination clause:

12.1 Termination. This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate:

…

(c) automatically without notice from Apple if You, at any time during the term of this License, commence an action for patent infringement against Apple; provided that Apple did not first commence an action for patent infringement against You in that instance.

Like the React patent grant, this applies to any patent suit, not just ones that allege that the covered software infringes. The Open Source Initiative considers APSLv2 an Open Source license, and the Free Software Foundation considers it a Free Software license. Note that this clause terminates your copyright license, not merely your patent license - it's significantly stronger than the React rider.

So I think the claim that it's not open source is a bit strong, even though I find this sort of language pretty repugnant.

Microsoft is not necessarily a paragon of open source, but many of their open source projects use unadulterated OS licenses.

Typescript is Apache 2: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/blob/master/LICENSE....

Visual Studio Code is MIT: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/LICENSE.txt

Apple and Facebook have "strong" patent retaliation clauses while Microsoft has a "weak" patent retaliation clause.

More on strong vs weak retaliation clauses here: http://www.rosenlaw.com/lj9.htm

Can't believe Microsoft is the good guy here.

Can the unadulterated hate on Microsoft stop ESPECIALLY when you are using an Apple product.

Microsoft has always had "good guys/gals" at the company. They have been in action more the good guys then anything else minus Steve Balmer's anti-Linux bias over the years.

Can't believe you've ever thought of Apple as "the good guy".

You will notice that most new projects all use MIT. Apache 2 hasn't been used for anything new in the last year+.

Have some examples?

The MIT license is problematic with software patents.

I see some projects moving to Apache2 for that reason (one prominent example here is Rust. They moved to an MIT/Apache2 dual licensing model).

Here are some that I found that are all created in that window: - https://github.com/Microsoft/Docker-PowerShell - https://github.com/Microsoft/malmo - https://github.com/Microsoft/projection-grid - https://github.com/Microsoft/HoloToolkit-Unity - https://github.com/Microsoft/pxt - https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder - https://github.com/Microsoft/elfie-arriba - https://github.com/Microsoft/team-explorer-everywhere

I could have found more, but its a big org. Any examples I found that used other licenses where that way because they where related to something else that used a previous license (i.e. all TypeScript stuff is Apache2, hence any new TS is still be Apache2 for consistency).

What is the problem with the MIT license and patents?

The MIT license grants explicit rights to deal in the software without restriction.

A copyright license is not necessarily the same as a patent grant... Apache 2 does contain a patent grant, and an even bigger nuclear deterrent similar to Facebook's separate grant with MIT.

The MIT license is not a copyright license (though, copyright is claimed). It is a license for unrestricted dealings in the software subject to certain conditions (no warranty or fitness, appropriate notices given, etc.).

Not true. In the Android world, Apache 2.0 is on everything.

Example?

Not sure the easiest way to get a list of the top Android libraries on GitHub, but here's a sample of some that are Apache 2.0: https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJava http://square.github.io/retrofit/ http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/

FWIW, my Android app's codebase has 18 Apache 2.0 dependencies, 1 MIT and 2 BSD. Maybe since the large libraries mostly use Apache 2.0, the smaller Android devs just follow suit?

Just about every Puppet module is published as Apache 2, it's the go to license in our ecosystem.

For new projects, my understanding is that Apple is using Apache and not the APSL any longer. Swift for example.

I just looked at XNU and it is still under the APSL. Does anyone know why a company would not want to go back and change the license of a project? Is it that the company doesn't have the copyright but the individual developers? Even if all the developers only worked for the primary company?

It does not apply to any patent suit. A petition for DJ against a demand letter, for instance, would not be included. A PGR at the PTO, even when appealed to courts is not included. An interference proceeding at court against Apple is not included.

This sort of license is definitely open source (and common, in fact), it's just not gpl2 compatible, which is the current reason most licenses avoid it

Basically: Any attempt to terminate both copyright and patent rights will be gplv2 incompatible Attempts to terminate patent rights, written in the right way, will be compatible.

easy enough for the determined to circumvent: construct a new legal entity and transfer the ip rights to it. then the new entity files suit.

If there's money behind the case, lawyers will sue anyways, arguing that the IP shell is a related entity whose actions can be reflected upon the parent.

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