Choose alternative license to remove patent risk

[jgandert]

As mentioned here my understanding is that using code under a CC0 license in a project opens one up to legal risk, as no patents are waived.

This is contrary to a license like GPLv3, which contains this:

Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.

[KdotJPG]

Hmm, I see the concern. CC0 creates too large of a gap for hidden patent encumberments to surface, and many codebases have not approved of the license as a result.

It would be ideal if there were a widely-accepted option as permissive as CC0 with just this part changed. So many of the established licenses that do right on patents (e.g. GPL, Apache) seem to be saddled with conditions previously not in play with CC0 (sublicensing, attribution, stating modifications).

Maybe MIT-0 is a step up from CC0, at least?

[jgandert]

It seems the best license for this case is Apache License, Version 2.0, because it grants an explicit patent grant and otherwise has almost no conditions.

GitHub's summary for Apache License, Version 2:

See: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/6810/why-doesnt-the-mit-license-have-patent-use-permission

That said, MIT-0 would still be a step up, as CC0 explicitly states:

No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.

And this article even argues that MIT has an implicit patent clause:

https://opensource.com/article/18/3/patent-grant-mit-license