Talk:Common Public License

Link to the licence
Here's a link to the CPL text not tied to any project: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.php


 * The licence is published by IBM, and IBM is the copyright holder. This is important because IBM can publish updated versions, and IBM's published version (although surely identical) is the official version: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-cpl.html Gronky 14:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"commercial" - meaningless
A recent edit changed the article to say that the CPL differs from the GPL in that it allows "commercial" versions to be published in more situations. This is patently incorrect. All GPL's software can be sold and anyone can sell related services or charge for the service of distributing it. Sometimes people say "commercial" when they mean proprietary software or "non-free". I will change the article assuming the contributor made that mistake, but if someone who knows more about the CPL can confirm, that would be good. Gronky 14:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, the sentence is too meaningless for me to even be able to guess how to fix it. Can someone read this and insert what it should say into the article?  Thanks Gronky 14:15, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"A key difference is relicensing: one may compile a Program licensed under the CPL without modification and commercially license the result in accordance with the terms of the CPL."

Patent clause
Section 7 says:

If Recipient institutes patent litigation against a Contributor with respect to a patent applicable to software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then any patent licenses granted by that Contributor to such Recipient under this Agreement shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. In addition, if Recipient institutes patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Program itself (excluding combinations of the Program with other software or hardware) infringes such Recipient's patent(s), then such Recipient's rights granted under Section 2(b) shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

This potentially has a huge impact on your patent program. The second part of this provision is similar to Apache in that it is drawn to patent litigation based on the Program, but the first part applies to patent litigation against any Contributor involving a software patent. If IBM is a Contributor, and you sue IBM over any kind of software patent, you must stop using the Program immediately or risk a patent suit by IBM over your use of the Program.

Proprietary licence
I deleted this sentence: "A key difference is relicensing: one may compile a Program licensed under the CPL without modification and license it under a proprietary license." It is wrong. One may recompile without modification and license it under a commercial license, not under a proprietary one. The source code need not be included, but must be made available on request (and information that it is available on request must accompany the binary form). That's exactly the same as with the GPL!

--Sky Diva 16:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems that it allows you to link proprietary code with CPL'd code without CPL'ing the proprietary code, though, which makes it more like the LGPL in that respect. --Delirium 01:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Compability with GPL (v2, v3)
One of the most important questions many readers will have is "Is it compatible with GPLv2 and/or GPLv3"? While the article clearly states it is incompatible with GPLv2, it doesn't really say anything about v3. But the sidebar lists it as compatible with v1 and v3. Accoding to FSF, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CommonPublicLicense10, this is not the case for v3, due to the "choice of law", which I think is the bit about where legal battles should rage. Would anyone object to me fixing this (I think) rather grave error? Esben 13:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and fixed it. If the person who added it wants to re-add it, please give a reference for how GPLv3 "adopted a similar clause". --Gronky 13:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * GPLv3 section 11 contains an explicit patent license. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 21:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * According to FSF, the problem is still the choice of law clause, which would be the last bit in section 7, I think. I'll add GPLv3 as incompatible with the CPL unless we get solid proof otherwise. Esben (talk) 09:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I changed the article to reflect what the FSF compatibility page currently says. There is no longer any mention of patent issues. Superm401 - Talk 15:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

IBM software under CPL?
Why this article doesn't mention any CPL licensed software released by IBM? Is there any? Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 13:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why IBM? But there is e.g. the coin projects. IBM is a major contributor, and almost the only one for several of those, e.g. the clp. Esben (talk) 10:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Why IBM? Because it looks funny when the only user of IBM's license mentioned in the article is Microsoft. Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 08:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

rename to Eclipse Public License
Since the new name of this license is Eclipse Public License, we should as well rename this article. See http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/mike/2009/04/16/one-small-step-towards-reducing-license-proliferation/ --Sebastian.Dietrich (talk) 23:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)