[ohf-licenses] Apple Public Source License

[Greg London]

So, I finally had some time to re-read the
Apple Public Source License.

I think it might actually be able to be
usable as an Open Hardware license as is,
or with only minor modifications.

Section 2.2, (c) says:

> If You Externally Deploy Your Modifications,
> You must make Source Code of all Your
> Externally Deployed Modifications either
> available to those to whom You have
> Externally Deployed Your Modifications,
> or publicly available.

The question is whether selling an ASIC
would qualify as "externally deploy".

> 1.4 "Externally Deploy" means:
> (a) to sublicense, distribute or
> otherwise make Covered Code available,
> directly or indirectly, to anyone other
> than You; and/or (b) to use Covered Code,
> alone or as part of a Larger Work, in any
> way to provide a service, including but
> not limited to delivery of content,
> through electronic communication
> with a client other than You.

Make the work available "indirectly" might
be an ASIC. Or, it might be that section 1.4
should be expanded to include something about
selling hardware based on the work. Not sure.

But it seems really close to what we need
if it doesn't already cover it.

Section 2.3 talks about binaries, which
should cover the case where someone distributes
an FPGA bitstream. The license requires the
source code be made public.


And it looks like section 4 already includes
what would be needed for limiting the copyleft
aspect of the license to the hierarchical
level of the work covered. i.e. if you put a
FIFO design under the license, and someoen uses
that FIFO in their processor design without modifying
the FIFO, then their processor is a "larger work"
and does not have to be part of the copylefted
aspect of the license.

> 4. Larger Works. You may create a
> Larger Work by combining Covered
> Code with other code not governed
> by the terms of this License and
> distribute the Larger Work as a single
> product. In each such instance,
> You must make sure the requirements
> of this License are fulfilled for
> the Covered Code or any portion thereof.

The only other major question was patent rights.
Section 3 says:

> You hereby grant to any person or
> entity receiving or distributing
> Covered Code under this License a
> non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual,
> irrevocable license, under Your
> Applicable Patent Rights and other
> intellectual property rights (other
> than patent) owned or controlled by
> You, to use, reproduce, display,
> perform, modify, sublicense, distribute
> and Externally Deploy Your Modifications
> of the same scope and extent as
> Apple's licenses

That last list of rights is all copyright rights.
Might want to expand the list to include patent
rights such as "manufacture" and "sell", etc.
Since the Apple license was originally intended
for software. But if we use it in hardware, we
would need the right to manufacture and sell actual
hardware, not just "distribute" code.

Otherwise, I *think* section 3 is basically
saying that you can create a patent within
the work, but you grant everyone a license
to use that patent.

So, it looks like the Apple Public Source License
is actually a whole lot closer to being what is
needed to work as an Open Hardware license than
I thought.

Certainly a lot closer than GNU-GPL.

The other bit that stands out is that the license
refers to "software" quite a bit. We'd probably want
to change that to something more generic like "work",
so we could use it to cover software and hardware both.

Towards the bottom, the license says:

> You may not use this file except in
> compliance with the License.

which looks like the license itself is covered by the
APSL. So we should be able to modify it once we agree
to the changes.

Thoughts?

Greg