On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 8:10 PM, Dave Fisher <dave2w...@comcast.net> wrote: > > On Jan 21, 2013, at 10:59 AM, Rob Weir wrote: > >> Since this has come up recently, I'd like to point you all to a recent >> thread on the legal-discuss list: >> >> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/201301.mbox/browser >> >> If you are not familiar with the SGA form, you can see it here: >> >> http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt >> >> As you can see, it is a combined Corporate CLA and Software Grant >> Agreement. Notice it does not speak of the Apache License, but it >> does offer its own copyright and patent license. >> >> The license portion in question was this: >> >> "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions >> of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to >> recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, >> worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable >> copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, >> publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute >> Your Contributions and such derivative works." >> >> The question was: What does "software distributed by the Foundation" >> mean? Does that mean only releases? Code in SVN? What exactly? >> >> As you can read in the archives, the response was that stuff in SVN is >> considered "distributed by the Foundation", so the license of the SGA >> applies to contributions made under SGA and checked into Subversion. >> >> But note also Roy's later clarifying response: >> >> "The dev subversion repo is not a means of distributing to the >> "general public". It distributes to our self-selected development >> teams that are expected to be aware of the state of the code being >> distributed. >> >> When we distribute to the "general public", it is called a release." >> >> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/201301.mbox/browser >> >> That was the basis for the DISCLAIMER I put in the root of our >> Subversion a couple of days ago: >> >> https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/openoffice/DISCLAIMER >> >> I don't think this is anything new. We already know that code that >> we're releasing requires careful review and verification of file >> headers, LICENSE and NOTICE files, etc. That is part of what it means >> to publish a release at Apache. But we have other stuff in Subversion >> that we do not intend to include in a release, and for which we do not >> make this effort. For example, /devtools, /ooo-site and /symphony. > > Agreed this follows the policy here: > http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html > > One subtle point here is the following: > > "If the source file is submitted with a copyright notice included in it, the > copyright owner (or owner's agent) must either: > • remove such notices, or > • move them to the NOTICE file associated with each applicable > project release, or > • provide written permission for the ASF to make such removal or > relocation of the notices." > > The SGA does not give those rights. >
And perhaps a more subtle point (you seemed to miss it, for example) is the section that says: "When must Apache projects comply with this policy? All releases created and distributed after November 1, 2006 must comply with this policy." The source in the /symphony directory is not planned to be included in any release, so I don't see this policy as applicable. > If IBM will or has granted the ASF these specific rights then anyone from the > project can make these changes as they move the files. But unless this is so > it is only safe for an IBM employee listed on a CCLA to do it. That is the > hang up as non-IBM project committers may be constrained from doing this > until this matter is cleared up. > That is a hypothetical issue, since no developers have stepped forward to volunteer merging these files into the AOO 4.0 trunk. -Rob > Regards, > Dave > > >
