[OpenID] OpenID license

[Nathan]

To summarise then (with regards OpenID/OIDF specifications):

All contributors have signed patent non assert agreements

The signed agreements can (not) be found here http://openid.net/ipr/

No patents from contributors covering OpenID specifications are disclosed.

The non assert agreements protect contributors from each other (to an 
extent), they do not protect implementers.

As far as you know the OpenID specs are not patent encumbered, but you 
advise implementers to access the legal situation with their legal 
council before writing a line of code, and if worried to go and license 
the relevant patent(s) or get patent non asserts.

The patent(s) may cover parts of other existing or future protocol 
specifications from non associated third parties, and of course the 
implementations of those.

The copyright on OpenID specifications mean they cannot be released 
under CC-zero licenses (or similar), the licenses which are compatible 
are unknown, Janrain has opted for Apache V2 but may still be infringing 
on patents (as all implementations may be).

The 'OIDF hereby disclaims any responsibility for identifying the 
existence, or for evaluating the applicability, of any patents, patent 
applications, or other rights (including copyrights) claimed to be 
applicable to any Specification and will take no position on the 
validity or scope of any such rights.'

The general advice is that because of the legal costs of a patent 
infringement case it's likely that anybody implementing will be 
infringing patents (if there are any, but they aren't disclosed) but 
they most likely won't be sued because of the costs involved.

So, do I take it that I should just get on and implement the 
specifications, go for a license which keeps all rights reserved to the 
OIDF and hope for the best; ignore the patent matter, and if manages to 
get a business to the value where patent infringements would be worth 
going after seek legal council and worry about it then.

Am I correct?

Best,

Nathan

Chris Messina wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 6:48 PM, Nathan <nathan at webr3.org> wrote:
> 
>>> Essentially the non-asserts are about protecting the creators of the
>>> technology, and less about protecting the implementors. It's up to each
>>> implementor to assess the legal situation with their own counsel (if it's
>>> important to them) before writing a line of code. The contributors
>>> obviously
>>> can't do that for you, they can only assess their own legal situation and
>>> act according to their interests.
>>>
>> well I can't afford to do that, nor do I have the time so doesn't really
>> leave me much choice I guess :(
> 
> 
> Most people can't afford this (including me, personally) and implement
> anyway.
> 
> It's up to you, as I said, to determine your risk and proceed accordingly.
> 
> If you can't or won't implement OpenID because you're concerned about being
> sued for patent infringement, consider how much patent litigation costs and
> then weigh that against the likelihood that anyone would really go after
> anyone worth less than 10s of millions of dollars for patent infringement.
> 
> Hell, if anyone is really worried about your implementation, you can always
> go license the relevant patent(s).
> 
> 
>>> Not today. Depends on the copyright license that applies. The default is
>>> all
>>> rights reserved, so until we specify otherwise, that's the doctrine that
>>> applies.
>>>
>> okay, assuming that Apache License V2.0 is compatible given that janrain
>> openid implementations are released under it, any word on CC
>> Attribution-ShareAlike (for an implementation).
>>
> 
> Copyright license on code is separate from patent licenses. Janrain
> libraries could still infringe patents, but you could at least create
> derivative works or fork the libraries thanks to the copyright license.
> 
> Just remember to keep those issues separate.
> 
> Chris
> 
>