[dpdk-moving] How do other BSD-licensed projects handle patent issues?

["O'Driscoll, Tim" <tim.odriscoll@intel.com>]

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Mike,

At yesterday's call on moving DPDK to the Linux Foundation we had a discussion on the need for a CLA. The concern from some Linaro members with the current process (DCO and BSD license) is the lack of patent protection. We agreed on the call to check with you to see if the Linux Foundation have any guidance on whether this has been an issue with other BSD-licensed projects, and if so on how they dealt with it.

The majority opinion on the call was against a CLA because of the extra overhead required for contributors to get the CLA reviewed/approved by their legal teams before they can contribute to the project. An alternative solution if we do need patent protection would be to move to the Apache 2.0 license for new contributions. Both solutions (CLA and Apache 2.0) would only give partial coverage though, as neither would apply to the existing DPDK code base (trying to apply either retrospectively would be a big effort).

I realize this question may involve a legal opinion on software licensing, so it may be difficult to answer publically, but we agreed to check with you to see if the LF have any guidance which might help us to reach a conclusion on this.


Tim

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