
The Apache License (v2) has a dangerous interpretation - itistoday2
https://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2013/09/the-apache-contributors-license-agreement-is-very-dangerous/
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DannyBee
Apache has had an FAQ about this for years that deals with exactly this issue:

[http://www.apache.org/foundation/license-
faq.html#PatentScop...](http://www.apache.org/foundation/license-
faq.html#PatentScope)

Almost every company that has adopted the CLA (which is a _lot_ ) takes this
view.

This is essentially a non-issue in practice.

~~~
DannyBee
Lots of IANAL comments here. IAAL :)

My statement of "non-issue in practice" was based on being an open source
lawyer and having talked with a large number of companies who use Apache based
CLA's (including the one i work for, though i'm not speaking for them here)
over the years.

While there are questions about "claims that later become licensable", i have
not seen any lawyers question the scope of the grant and claim it would cover
patents implicated by the work except as it existed at time of contribution
(and folks are generally aware of the 'ambiguity' that exists here). There are
good legal reasons to believe the interpretation would be "as the work existed
at time of contribution", and no good legal reasons i'm aware of to believe
otherwise.

If it actually goes bad at some point, sure, it should be modified. There are
no indications it's worth doing any more than wordsmithing any other part of
the agreement.

Hence, my view: This is not a problem in practice.

~~~
itistoday2
Feel free to join the discussion on the ASF legal list! :)

[https://twitter.com/taoeffect/status/379227928573124608](https://twitter.com/taoeffect/status/379227928573124608)

~~~
DannyBee
Sure, but you must realize the ASF changing things would not impact much of
anything, since the agreement is reused (with very slight differences) by
hundreds of folks.

In fact, in some ways, you are better off with them not changing it, because
if they do, now you have to argue they changed it but they didn't really think
that change mattered ...

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teraflop
This is about the ASF _Contributor_ License Agreement, not the Apache License
itself.

~~~
itistoday2
Quoting SEMW: Venturing just a little further than the title, into the first
paragraph, we come across a (large, boldfaced) edited addition to the effect
that "All of this applies to the regular Apache License (v2) as well".

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panzi
So this posting is by someone who thinks software patents are a good thing and
still contributes to open source software? How does this cognitive dissonance
work out? Is he not aware that many open source licenses have exactly such
terms in order to fight software patents? This isn't something new or
outrageous.

~~~
jwecker
Giving a perpetual royalty free license to anything you may ever patent for
the rest of your life because of a subtle loophole in a license that people
aren't generally aware of is, IMO, new and outrageous, irrespective of the
utility (or lack thereof) of software patents.

~~~
nknighthb
A "subtle loophole in a license" is practically a contradiction in terms.
Courts don't enforce unlikely interpretations that run counter to the
reasonable (and documented!) expectations of most if not all parties concerned
just because some lawyer walks into a courtroom and announces they want to
interpret it that way. Law is not a programming language, and it's not
enforced by computers.

If anything, the change that was made by the company here is even worse
because it's obviously ambiguous. What exactly does it mean for a patent claim
to "exist"? Are we talking about patents already granted? Patents filed?
Patents that _might_ be filed?

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shadowmint
Use the MIT license.

The only thing the apache license gives over that is that derivative works
include a notice acknowledging the previous authors.

Honestly, if I'm releasing my code for free, I couldn't care less. If you want
to be a douche and pretend you wrote it, go for it.

It's like that quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson: The good thing about science is
that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

see: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-
any-...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-
license.html)

~~~
magicalist
The patent grant/license language of Apache 2.0 is actually quite important,
_especially_ for those downstream. That's why the FSF recommends[1] Apache
over X11/MIT if you aren't going to go copyleft.

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html#X11License](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html#X11License)

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tzakrajs
The article mentions the Apache ICLA (Individual Contribution License
Agreement) and not the Apache License v2 as stated in the title.

For further information about the types of Apache license:
[https://www.apache.org/licenses/](https://www.apache.org/licenses/)

~~~
SEMW
Venturing just a little further than the title, into the first paragraph, we
come across a (large, boldfaced) edited addition to the effect that "All of
this applies to the regular Apache License (v2) as well".

------
itistoday2
Mirror (in case site is slow or goes down):

[http://cdn.taoeffect.com/other/apache/index.html](http://cdn.taoeffect.com/other/apache/index.html)

