On Apr 30, 2010, at 3:10 PM, Joe Bohn wrote:

> 
> IIUC then I think we do need to fix this for the following reasons:
> 
> 1) We are releasing these artifacts - even if they are copies of Tomcat 
> artifacts.  The artifact is being released under the groupID 
> "org.apache.geronimo.ext.tomcat" and it is being released in source (not just 
> binary) form.

I agree with your general conclusion, but don't necessarily agree with how you 
got there... :-). I definitely agree with your statement in 1). 

> 
> 2) In addition to that, I can't see where Tomcat has actually ever released 
> these files - so it may be that we are "pre-releasing" them rather than 
> "re-releasing" them.  I see a tag for Tomcat 7.0.0 RC1 but I don't see any 
> artifacts available yet on any repositories.

As far as I can tell, Tomcat never concluded their vote on 7.0.0. I would 
assume the vote is cancelled. The issue of these two files was raised in their 
vote. And the possibility of removing them was also suggested. More below...

<snip>

>> 
>> On 4/30/10 1:10 PM, Joe Bohn wrote:
>>> 
>>> -1 (sorry)
>>> 
>>> There are some files with invalid license headers:
>>> /util/src/main/java/org/apache/tomcat/util/bcel/classfile/EnclosingMethod.java
>>> 
>>> /util/src/main/java/org/apache/tomcat/util/bcel/classfile/LocalVariableTypeTable.java

The license headers are not Apache source license headers. However, this does 
not necessarily make them invalid source for an Apache release. The files are 
not AL2 licensed. So, it makes sense that they would not contain an Apache 
source license header. Apache releases can contain source files that are 
licensed under a number of licenses that the ASF has determined to be 
compatible with AL2. Here is a pretty good overview -- 
http://www.apache.org/legal/3party.html

The source files in question were originally CPL Licensed. There's a further 
comment that the ASF has elected to distribute the file under an EPL license. I 
haven't looked to see when this "relicense" occurred, or if I agree with it. 
For this discussion it's largely irrelevant. CPL and EPL are equivalent for the 
purposes of this discussion.

From the web site, you'll note that both CPL 1.0 and EPL 1.0 are Category B 
licenses. As such, these files could not be included in an Apache *source* 
release (they could be included in binary form), unless they fall into the 
following exclusion:

"For small amounts of source that is directly consumed by the ASF product at 
runtime in source form, and for which that source is unlikely to be changed 
anyway (say, by virtue of being specified by a standard), this action is 
sufficient. An example of this is the web-facesconfig_1_0.dtd, whose inclusion 
is mandated by the JSR 127: JavaServer Faces specification.

Code that is more substantial, more volatile, or not directly consumed at 
runtime in source form may only be distributed in binary form."

My guess is that this code is unlikely to change, but probably still does not 
fall under the above guidelines (e.g. AFAIK, it is "not directly consumed at 
runtime in source form"). We could discuss this if others disagree with this 
conclusion...

One note: If the license for these files were instead BSD or any other Category 
A license, they would be fine for an Apache release...

--kevan

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