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| Re: Dual License with EPL and Apache 2.0 [message #1279781 is a reply to message #1276501] |
Sat, 29 March 2014 08:03   |
 Suminda Sirinath Salpitikorala Dharmasena
Messages: 13
Registered: July 2009 |
Junior Member |
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1) EPL is explicit about Source Code (SC) and Object Code (OC) for Derived Works (DW) in Section 3
2) Will there SC which is a DW of OC / SC in light of authorship laws
E.g. derived from a template in SC/OC format or by a wizard in which case the authorship depending on the jurisdiction may be the person initiating the wizard or the entity who created the wizard as the process using the wizard does not have much intellectual involvement.
3) Will this produce any DW artifacts which will not fall into legally plausible definitions of SC or OC.
4) Also what can be the definitions of SC and OC (there will be many as EPL does not define it)
5) In using something like Xtext how is the Author (Contributor) determined in different jurisdictions / international law
6) With regard to Xtext artifacts is it always clear whether some file are SC or OC are there ambiguities (E.g. ASL 2.0 some auto generated files can be considered both Object Code as well as Source Code as per the definitions in the license.)
7) If A write language using Xtext and give this to B who uses this to create a project, then author ship laws would mean in some cases A is the author of the project and in some cases B is the author of the project. If B is the author always there is no issue but incase A is held as the author of the initially generated project files then any subsequent modification to this would mean that the files in this project is a derived work from the auto generated project which is owned by A.
a) if this not considered a DW what are B's rights and indemnities does B have for copyright infringement
b) if it is considered a derived work B is compelled to share the code as per EPL.
In case of 7) a) can B use faire use and what jurisdictions. What are additional steps needed to ensure B has the copyright in the latter two cases.
8) If a SC template is used to derive SC using a templating engine, this also would be similar to using an IDE to edit the code in a jurisdiction where person initiating the process is considered the author. And also this being a DW of the template. How do you distinguish EPL DW SC from non EPL DW SC?
[Updated on: Sat, 29 March 2014 11:10] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Dual License with EPL and Apache 2.0 [message #1279861 is a reply to message #1279781] |
Sat, 29 March 2014 11:06 |
Ed Merks
Messages: 33140
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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You'll need to consult a lawyer, and I am not a lawyer. I did work at
IBM and was involved there in these kinds of discusses and I am on the
Eclipse Board, including on the board's IP advisory committee, so I do
have some experience with this area. Based on this experience, I know
for a fact that when you talk to lawyers, each will put a slightly
different personal slant on things, and none will give you a definitive
statement unless you pay them a lot of money, and even then, nothing
guarantees that their opinion will hold up in a court of law. So good
luck with that approach...
On the pragmatic side of things, consider your concern with regard to a
specific real analogous example. EMF has templates for generating all
kinds of code. The templates are complex and full of very detailed
interesting design patterns, so much so that it's enough to produce a
fully functional Eclipse application from a model description. Those
templates are definitely under the EPL. If you modify the template, the
EPL applies to your modification. But, when you feed in a model---one
you designed and hence is your Intellectual Property (IP)---out will
come a complete application which you might be concerned is derivative
work of the template. Of course it's clear that it's also derivative
work of the IP (model) you feed into the template. It's always been my
position (and no one has ever contradicted me, including lawyers) that
the resulting generated code is license free and purely the intellectual
property of the model author. The author is free to apply any license
to the generated code and is free to copyright it as they see fit. There
are literally thousands of organizations that consider such generated
code equivalent to having written every last line themselves, from
scratch, so I think any court ruling to the contrary would destroy an
entire ecosystem. It's impossible to imagine that ever being the case.
So in the case of Xtext, again you feed in your IP (a grammar in this
case) and out pops your fully functional application, free of license
and purely your IP, no ifs, ands, ors or buts. Again, a great many
organizations have done this and happily consider it purely their own IP
and happily publish it under whatever license and with whatever
copyright turns their crank.
There's no point in further discussion because only a legal ruling would
hold any real weight. I'll assert that this will never happen because
the open source community at Eclipse has no interest in asserting
copyrights or licenses for generated code. Moreover, we disapprove of
and reject any such notion and would work actively against any legal
action moving in that direction.
On 29/03/2014 9:03 AM, Suminda Sirinath Salpitikorala Dharmasena wrote:
> 1) EPL is explicit about Source Code (SC) and Object Code (OC) for
> Derived Works (DW) in Section 3
> 2) Will there SC which is a DW of OC / SC in light of authorship laws
> E.g. derived from a template in SC/OC format or by a wizard in which
> case the authorship depending on the jurisdiction may be the person
> initiating the wizard or the entity who created the wizard as the
> process using the wizard does not have much intellectual involvement.
> 3) Will this produce any DW artifacts which will not fall into legally
> plausible definitions of SC or OC.
Ed Merks
Professional Support: https://www.macromodeling.com/
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