Patent policy?

[davelab6]

I'd like to suggest there be a patent policy for UFO published in the UFO website, perhaps as part of the existing submission process docs.

(Since much is licensed under MIT instead of Apache, there isn't a de facto policy set by a libre license mostly dealing in copyright. It may be worth upgrading to Apache.)

@tiroj raised this point on the https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/2020-August/thread.html list in thread "[MPEG-OTSPEC] Patent policy and process (was: Defining the text shaping working group’s scope)"

[benkiel]

Dave: is this something that Google Fonts could help with in terms of getting legal advice/language for submissions from a staff lawyer?

[davelab6]

Company lawyers work for the company, so aren't allowed to give advice to anyone else, including employees of the company outside their role at the company.

It may also be hard to obtain advice as an unincorporated collective, but that should be clear when trying to obtain a quote from a commercial attorney, and it's certainly possible that Google Fonts and other corporate users of UFO could donate to wherever UFO donations go in order to obtain such services.

Most libre projects deal with this by joining an "umbrella corporation" like "Software in the Public Interest" or "Software Freedom Conversancy", the latter of which is run by lawyers, who have boilerplate policies for members.

[typesupply]

(Since much is licensed under MIT instead of Apache, there isn't a de facto policy set by a libre license mostly dealing in copyright. It may be worth upgrading to Apache.)

I searched the spec source and the only reference to the MIT license is in the media directory for the icon file. I removed references to that outdated file when I updated the site, but didn't remove it from the repository just in case someone wants to bring it past 2005 icon standards. I can delete it if that will mollify the corporate legal departments. The spec itself currently has no license because we could never figure out what kind of license an open specification could or should have. (I think early versions of the spec used the term "public domain.") If some kind of patent statement, legal disclosure or whatever is really needed, we'll have to have some funding from somewhere because we don't have a budget for domain registration let alone a legal department. 🤣

[benkiel]

@davelab6 Do you have any examples of specifications being licensed under Apache 2.0? I see that CommonType is licensed this way, but I find it really odd that it's a software license applied to a specification, as it is a text file, not a program. @simoncozens did you consult a lawyer about this? I see that CommonType is a fork of the AOTS, which had some java code, so the apache license makes some sense there. Wondering if you just continued with Apache because of the fork or examined options that could be helpful here.

I looked at OpenOffice and I don't see a license (it is very likely I missed it in a quick search of the PDF). I will keep looking, but I have the feeling that you are very well versed here: do you have any models or examples that would be useful to look at?

[simoncozens]

CommonType has gone through various iterations, and I am no longer using the AOTS sources at all. The Apache license is there precisely because of the patent policy issue. (Note that I am currently consulting the Software Freedom Conservancy about a separate issue related to the spec - use of OT field names - but I'm sure we'll talk about licensing issues too.)

[benkiel]

@simoncozens thanks for the info: do you also find Apache an awkward fit?

[davelab6]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 12:13 PM Ben Kiel ***@***.***> wrote: @davelab6 <https://github.com/davelab6> Do you have any examples of specifications being licensed under Apache 2.0?

https://github.com/oasis-open/odata-rapid/blob/master/LICENSE