[Fedora-legal-list] Helping the Fan project relicense from AFL

[Richard Fontana]

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:52:04 -0400
Michel Alexandre Salim <michael.silvanus at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm currently discussing with the developers for Fan
> (http://fandev.org/), a JVM/CLR language, the possibility of them
> relicensing or dual-licensing from the Academic Free License.
> 
> Current discussion thread here:
> http://fandev.org/sidewalk/topic/777
> 
> The main concern seems to be that whatever new license they pick has
> patent defense clauses, and the developer that responded, Brian, is
> under the opinion that the Apache license does not provide this
> (IANAL, but my reading is that it does).
> 
> We are likely able to convince them to switch to either ASL 2.0 or
> (L)GPLv3+, so if someone from the legal team (Spot?) could address
> this concern, we have one more application that suddenly can
> interoperate with more FLOSS libraries.
 
Brian's comment is correct: the patent termination provision in the
Apache License 2.0, if triggered, results merely in a loss of patent
licenses, not in termination of the copyright license. By contrast, the
patent termination feature of (L)GPLv3, if triggered, terminates (at
the licensor's option, and subject to the cure provisions) the entire
license, including copyright as well as patent licenses. 

- RF