The Educational Community License (ECL) is a free and open source license based on the Apache license (version 2.0) and created with the specific needs of the academic community in mind. Version 2.0 of the ECL came out of the Licensing and Policy SummitOpen Source Collaboration in Higher Education: Guidelines and Report of the Licensing and Policy Framework Summit for Software Sharing in Higher Education
/ref> held in October 2006 in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

where members of the academic community came together to address the concerns of releasing software written at an academic institution under a free/open source license. Members of the summit included university attorneys,

technology transfer Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...

officers, free/open source project leaders, and foundation representatives. In particular, representatives of the

Sakai Project Sakai is a free, community source, educational software platform designed to support teaching, research and collaboration. Systems of this type are also known as Course Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS), or Virtual Le ...

and Kuali Foundation were in attendance. ECL version 2.0 was approved by the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

in the Summer of 2007, and the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft (" ...

lists it as being a "GPL-Compatible Free Software License" that is

compatible Compatibility may refer to: Computing * Backward compatibility, in which newer devices can understand data generated by older devices * Compatibility card, an expansion card for hardware emulation of another device * Compatibility layer, compo ...

with version 3 of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

but not compatible with GPLv2.GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses
/ref> This means that a software developer can mix code from an ECLv2 licensed project and a GPLv3 licensed project but, due to license terms incompatibility, they are not allowed to mix code from an ECLv2 project and a GPLv2 project. EDUCAUSE (Ref 2 below) says of the ECL, "It is essentially the Apache 2.0 license with a modification of the patent language to make it workable for many colleges and universities." The two patent clauses are reproduced below. The Apach
licence
patent clause states: "3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed." Th
ECL
patent clause states (differences are underlined): "3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. Any patent license granted hereby with respect to contributions by an individual employed by an institution or organization is limited to patent claims where the individual that is the author of the Work is also the inventor of the patent claims licensed, and where the organization or institution has the right to grant such license under applicable grant and research funding agreements. No other express or implied licenses are granted."

Notes

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External links

OpenSource.org - Educational Community License, Version 1.0, fulltextOpenSource.org - Educational Community License, Version 2.0, fulltext
Free and open-source software licenses Permissive software licenses