Why the additional “covenant” language in the Sun license?
The OpenSSL’s standard BSD style license does not address patent issues explicitly. Sun added a “patent peace provision” language to clarify its patent grant. This language is modeled after the Mozilla Public License. Similar language can also be found in the IBM Common Public License. This covenant was Sun’s way of promoting a patent peace arrangement so that key technology like Elliptic Curve Cryptography can become a standard in the industry.
