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Re: [spf-private] Re: Open Patent certification mark
And my response to Julian.

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From: Mark Shewmaker <mark@primefactor.com>
To: spf-private@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [spf-private] Re: Open Patent certification mark
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On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:51:38PM +0200, Julian Mehnle wrote:
>
> I'm not fundamentally opposed. However, I do have several issues and
> questions:

The points of confusion are really due to my not having an updated draft
of the patent license.

There are two components, the certification mark license and the patent
license.

I'm working on a major rewrite of the draft of the Open Patent License,
drastically simplifying things. (But I can't get that part done in
time, not by any stretch. And as a side note, because I'm in the US
I'll need a patent attorney's help in making it non-draft. Or at least
more patent attorney assistence--I've had some assistence on it so far.)

So I went with having the certification mark reference the OPL in such a
way that it would only be useful after the first non-draft version:

"Option (A) in the "Applicable Goods and Services" section of this
license will not be available for use until the first final, non-draft
version of the Open Patent License becomes available."

> 1. <http://www.openpatents.org/certification_mark_standards.html> refers
> to "the 'Conditions of Use' provisions of the latest version of Patents
> in the Public Interest's 'Open Patent License'", however I cannot find
> any OPL "conditions of use" provisions on your site.

That is correct.

It will effectively be the same as the currently named section:
"Using Patents and PLIPs from the Open Patent Pools"

I suppose I could rename this to "Using Patents and PLIPs from the Open
Patent Pools" or change the wording.

Basically I had first tried to update the patent license "Open Patent
License" as well as the certification mark license in the URL above, but
the patent license just requires too many changes--and it isn't
necessary to update it for the cert mark requirements.

> 2. Do I understand it correctly that there are two ways at participating
> in your Open Patents initiative: (a) "joining" at one of several
> "options", thus binding oneself to submitting _all_current_and_
> _future_ patents and PLIPs to the pool corresponding to the option
> chosen, or (b) merely submitting _specific_ patents and PLIPs to one or
> more of the pools?

On that version of the "Open Patent License" patent license itself, if
one is for submitting patents and plips, for use in closed-souce code, yes.

However it's not necessary to do that to use patents from the pools (for
qualified Open Source use), nor is it necessary to do that even for
submitting patents under other licenses. (For instance a patent grant
that said a patent was allowed to be used in any GPL work would work.)

(It could be used in the draft OPL to submit patents for Open Source
work.)

And again this is only related to working with the (still-very-draft)
patent license.

> 3. Assuming my understanding of (2) is correct, then do I understand it
> correctly that using the certification mark of some of the software
> provided by the openspf.org website would imply (2b), but not (2a)?

No. The certification mark is on goods and services according to the
conditions of the "Certification Mark Standards document".

One of the ways those conditions would be met is in goods/services
licensed under the mark's "Acceptible/(B)" section, which doesn't
require participation in even the draft OPL.

Another way would be if the OPL "use" terms applied. That could imply
both your (2a) and (2b), but it could also imply conditions which should
effectively match the "Acceptible/(B)" section.

It is not my intention at all to bind the openspf site/persons into the
OPL by simply using the mark.

> 4. Assuming my understanding of (3) is correct as well, then how would
> this work given that probably none of the software provided by the
> openspf.org website is actually covered by patents or PLIPs?

By the use of the "applicable/(b)" section:

"Software for which there exists at least one set of
licenses, grants, and agreements for which all of the following is true:"

> 5. Assuming it would work even without any actual patents, would this
> preclude the software covered by the Open Patent certification mark to
> be multi-licensed (in addition to the current exclusive BSD/GPL
> licenses) under other, non-open-source, or non-OPL-compatible licenses
> in the future?

No it wouldn't.

In fact, that a large part of the reason I used the complicated
set-based wording: "for which there exists at least one set of
licenses, grants, and agreements for which all of the following is
true:"

> 6. Would applying the Open Patent certification mark to some of the
> software automatically extend to clause C and D of the certification
> mark standards, i.e. to "Any services related to the execution of
> software described in (B) above", or to "Any services, including
> consulting services and retail services, related to the construction,
> design, modification, production, marketing, or delivery of goods and
> services described in (A) or (B) above", provided by users of the
> software?

That's the intent.

> 7. I'm generally worried about any perpetuality implied by the use of the
> OPL or the Open Patent certification mark. IOW, can we undo any
> decisions related to this later?

The OPL eventually--no. But it's not really available for anyone to
accept at the moment anyway.

The certification mark--yes.

> 8. I'm reluctant to start using the "TM" mark on the openspf.org website.
> If we use it for one trade mark, we may have to use it for _all_ the
> trade marks used on the website, which I'd very much like to avoid.

That's fine. I worded that part as a request only.

--
Mark Shewmaker
mark@primefactor.com
770-933-3250

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Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
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Mark Shewmaker wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 03:51:38PM +0200, Julian Mehnle wrote:
> > 2. Do I understand it correctly that there are two ways at
> > participating in your Open Patents initiative: (a) "joining" at one
> > of several "options", thus binding oneself to submitting _all_
> > _current_and_future_ patents and PLIPs to the pool corresponding
> > to the option chosen, or (b) merely submitting _specific_ patents
> > and PLIPs to one or more of the pools?
>
> On that version of the "Open Patent License" patent license itself, if
> one is for submitting patents and plips, for use in closed-souce code,
> yes.
>
> However it's not necessary to do that to use patents from the pools (for
> qualified Open Source use), [...]

I see.

> > 3. Assuming my understanding of (2) is correct, then do I understand
> > it correctly that using the certification mark of some of the
> > software provided by the openspf.org website would imply (2b), but
> > not (2a)?
>
> No. The certification mark is on goods and services according to the
> conditions of the "Certification Mark Standards document".
>
> One of the ways those conditions would be met is in goods/services
> licensed under the mark's "Acceptible/(B)" section, which doesn't
> require participation in even the draft OPL.
>
> Another way would be if the OPL "use" terms applied. That could imply
> both your (2a) and (2b), but it could also imply conditions which should
> effectively match the "Acceptible/(B)" section.

I see.

> It is not my intention at all to bind the openspf site/persons into the
> OPL by simply using the mark.

I hadn't assumed it was. I just want to be near completely certain about
the implications, intended or not. This "Open Patent" certification mark
obviously isn't very well tested yet.

> > 4. Assuming my understanding of (3) is correct as well, then how
> > would this work given that probably none of the software provided
> > by the openspf.org website is actually covered by patents or PLIPs?
>
> By the use of the "applicable/(b)" section:
>
> "Software for which there exists at least one set of
> licenses, grants, and agreements for which all of the following is
> true:"

I see.

> > 5. Assuming it would work even without any actual patents, would this
> > preclude the software covered by the Open Patent certification
> > mark to be multi-licensed (in addition to the current exclusive
> > BSD/GPL licenses) under other, non-open-source, or non-OPL-
> > compatible licenses in the future?
>
> No it wouldn't.

Good.

> > 6. Would applying the Open Patent certification mark to some of the
> > software automatically extend to clause C and D of the
> > certification mark standards, i.e. to "Any services related to the
> > execution of software described in (B) above", or to "Any services,
> > including consulting services and retail services, related to the
> > construction, design, modification, production, marketing, or
> > delivery of goods and services described in (A) or (B) above",
> > provided by users of the software?
>
> That's the intent.

So our use of the "Open Patent" certification mark would mean a change
(i.e. a restriction) in how people are allowed to use the marked pieces of
software, right?

Concretely, it would prevent people from combining a GPL-licensed software
(e.g. postfix-policyd-spf-perl) with another GPL-licensed software that
contains non-OPL-free (but GPL-compatible) patents/PLIPs, right?

> > 7. I'm generally worried about any perpetuality implied by the use of
> > the OPL or the Open Patent certification mark. IOW, can we undo
> > any decisions related to this later?
>
> The OPL eventually--no. But it's not really available for anyone to
> accept at the moment anyway.
>
> The certification mark--yes.

OK, that's what I thought. So we could remove the mark later if we find it
to be a problem. (I'm not expecting it to, but you never know. "Open
Patent" not well tested yet, yadda yadda.)

> > 8. I'm reluctant to start using the "TM" mark on the openspf.org
> > website. If we use it for one trade mark, we may have to use it for
> > _all_ the trade marks used on the website, which I'd very much like to
> > avoid.
>
> That's fine. I worded that part as a request only.

Good.

Thanks for explaining it all to me.

Assuming the two assumptions of mine above are correct, I have no
objections against marking postfix-policyd-spf-{perl,python} and
the "Tools" page as "Open Patent" as you requested (minus the "TM"s
perhaps).

What do others think?

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Re: Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 10:25:49PM +0000, Julian Mehnle wrote:
>
> > It is not my intention at all to bind the openspf site/persons into the
> > OPL by simply using the mark.
>
> I hadn't assumed it was. I just want to be near completely certain about
> the implications, intended or not. This "Open Patent" certification mark
> obviously isn't very well tested yet.

Having the non-final OPL even mentioned in the standards is probably not the
best idea.

I've removed it from the standard, except for a note soliciting help
in making a patent license in the Miscellaneous notes section.

That should make things even MORE certain. :-)

> So our use of the "Open Patent" certification mark would mean a change
> (i.e. a restriction) in how people are allowed to use the marked pieces of
> software, right?
>
> Concretely, it would prevent people from combining a GPL-licensed software
> (e.g. postfix-policyd-spf-perl) with another GPL-licensed software that
> contains non-OPL-free (but GPL-compatible) patents/PLIPs, right?

Yes and no.

It would not prevent people from making this newly combined work. It
would prevent them from calling this newly combined work an Open Patent
work.

This is just like Open Source and the BSD license. You can publish a
piece of code, license it under the BSD license, and call the software
Open Source code.

Someone else can take that code, make some proprietary modifications,
and redistribute it as BSD plus proprietary-stuff. But the resulting
work, (even though it contains BSD code), can no longer be called Open
Source.

But all the while the original work, and continued Open Source
development of it, can continue to be referred to as an Open Source
work.

> So we could remove the mark later if we find it
> to be a problem. (I'm not expecting it to, but you never know. "Open
> Patent" not well tested yet, yadda yadda.)

Right. This is roughly analogous to calling something "Open Source" or
"OSI-Certified Open Source", and later removing the mark, (either
because you modified the code so that that was no longer the case, or
because you discovered the rules no longer applied due to a
misunderstanding, or because you just didn't want to use the mark any
more.)

You're not using the mark in bad faith, (ie, trying to claim something
that's not true, where that claim would bind you somehow.). Everything
you're now claiming was true to begin with.

> Thanks for explaining it all to me.

Thanks for asking the questions! (It's always good to understand what
things aren't really clear and fix them--Your confusions and questions
convinced me to remove that main reference to the OPL.)

> Assuming the two assumptions of mine above are correct, I have no
> objections against marking postfix-policyd-spf-{perl,python} and
> the "Tools" page as "Open Patent" as you requested (minus the "TM"s
> perhaps).

(I'm fine with not having the TM's.)

> What do others think?

(whistles innocently.)

--
Mark Shewmaker
mark@primefactor.com

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Re: Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 04:45:39PM -0700, william(at)elan.net wrote:
>
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, Julian Mehnle wrote:
>
> >What do others think?
>
> Lets go ahead with one package to help Mark out in his efforts.

Thanks!

> I think a lot more research is needed though what is good for
> open-source patent related system. Personally I'd like to see
> GPL-like patent license where company gets a license to use
> certain patent iff it also promised that any other technology
> for which it gets patent and use of which would also require
> use of original "open source" patent would also have to be
> released under same "open source" patent license (this is
> top stop EEE and and similar problems where companies are
> only using open-source but not giving back or when giving
> back making it severely restricted).

That is precisely the intent of the patent-license section of the
project.

--
Mark Shewmaker
mark@primefactor.com

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Re: Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, Julian Mehnle wrote:

> What do others think?

Lets go ahead with one package to help Mark out in his efforts.

I think a lot more research is needed though what is good for
open-source patent related system. Personally I'd like to see
GPL-like patent license where company gets a license to use
certain patent iff it also promised that any other technology
for which it gets patent and use of which would also require
use of original "open source" patent would also have to be
released under same "open source" patent license (this is
top stop EEE and and similar problems where companies are
only using open-source but not giving back or when giving
back making it severely restricted).

--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william@elan.net

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Re: Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, Mark Shewmaker wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 04:45:39PM -0700, william(at)elan.net wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, Julian Mehnle wrote:
>>
>>> What do others think?
>>
>> Lets go ahead with one package to help Mark out in his efforts.
>
> Thanks!
>
>> I think a lot more research is needed though what is good for
>> open-source patent related system. Personally I'd like to see
>> GPL-like patent license where company gets a license to use
>> certain patent iff it also promised that any other technology
>> for which it gets patent and use of which would also require
>> use of original "open source" patent would also have to be
>> released under same "open source" patent license (this is
>> top stop EEE and and similar problems where companies are
>> only using open-source but not giving back or when giving
>> back making it severely restricted).
>
> That is precisely the intent of the patent-license section of the
> project.

Thanks. Hard to grasp and IANAL.

BTW, I've asked about it once and was told (by a lawyer) that
this may not be doable in legally binding way. Tough issue -
I think you need to get legal minds at GNU and FSF involved.

--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william@elan.net

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Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
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Mark Shewmaker wrote:
> > So our use of the "Open Patent" certification mark would mean a change
> > (i.e. a restriction) in how people are allowed to use the marked
> > pieces of software, right?
> >
> > Concretely, it would prevent people from combining a GPL-licensed
> > software (e.g. postfix-policyd-spf-perl) with another GPL-licensed
> > software that contains non-OPL-free (but GPL-compatible)
> > patents/PLIPs, right?
>
> Yes and no.
>
> It would not prevent people from making this newly combined work. It
> would prevent them from calling this newly combined work an Open Patent
> work.

Thanks for the clarification. (I really need to learn to keep the copy-
right/patent license and certification-mark license things separate in my
head. This cert-mark concept was new to me so I have been mixing them
up.)

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Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
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Mark Shewmaker wrote:
> Julian Mehnle wrote:
> > Assuming the two assumptions of mine above are correct, I have no
> > objections against marking postfix-policyd-spf-{perl,python} and
> > the "Tools" page as "Open Patent" as you requested (minus the "TM"s
> > perhaps).
>
> (I'm fine with not having the TM's.)

As I am now confident about the implications and no one has objected (Scott
rather being in silent agreement given his adding of the "Open Patent"
mark to his websites), and given the time constraints Mark seems to be
under, I have added the mark to the relevant parts of the following pages:

http://www.openspf.org/Software
http://www.openspf.org/Tools

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Re: Re: Open Patent certification mark [ In reply to ]
Yes. I'm good with this. Sorry.

Scott K

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