> Therefore I’m wondering — is it legal to copy code from PRs that were open before the license change? Are those PRs actually licensed as ASL-2?
The ASL2 suggests the answer is yes: > 5. Submission of Contributions. Unless You explicitly state otherwise, any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of this License, without any additional terms or conditions. Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed with Licensor regarding such Contributions. This implies that it should be safe to copy any existing Akka pull requests and merge them into Pekko, but it would be good to get someone from Apache legal to confirm. On Fri, Nov 4, 2022 at 1:44 AM Alexandru Nedelcu <[email protected]> wrote: > Lightbend’s CLA doesn’t transfer the copyright, but what it does is > it allows Lightbend to “sublicense” it as proprietary, which I guess > (IANAL, etc) is why they can legally change the license in their > repository without mentioning that some of that code is still available > as ASL-2. > > If Johannes is the author of that PR, it’s a big deal, because he > still owns the copyright for his work. This case, as far as I’m > concerned, is closed. > > My objection was about PRs in general — if a PR was made, that > doesn’t mean that the contribution was licensed under ASL-2, just > because the repository’s LICENSE was indicating ASL-2 at that time. > > Consider the situation in which (royal) you made a PR to Akka when it > was licensed as ASL-2, but it gets rejected for whatever reason. > That’s life, and you move on. Well, what happens if Lightbend copies > the code in that rejected PR, after the license changed? The original PR > was rejected, it was never “distributed”, you never agreed to the > merge, because the merge never happened. The PR itself was only a > proposal, after all. > > Therefore I’m wondering — is it legal to copy code from PRs that > were open before the license change? Are those PRs actually licensed as > ASL-2? > > If yes, well, let’s copy them all, I’m sure there are gems in there. > But my hunch is that there are issues with it, and I’d really like to > know the answer to this conundrum, as copyright law is really confusing > for me. > > And does the ASF have some legal expertise available, such that we can > settle these matters? > > On 3 Nov 2022, at 22:54, Greg Methvin wrote: > > > My understanding is that the Lightbend CLA only gives Lightbend a > > license > > to use and redistribute the code; it doesn't transfer copyright. Where > > it > > gets tricky is that many PRs can incorporate parts of the existing > > code in > > various ways, so are effectively a derivative work rather than being > > totally original, and you're on shaky ground unless you can prove that > > the > > code it's based on is entirely ASL licensed. But like you said, the > > commit > > it's based on is entirely ASL licensed code so there is no issue. > > > > On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 10:50 AM Jean-Luc Deprez > > <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > >> Fact that Johannes authored most of the work wouldn't matter much, as > >> I'd > >> guess copyright transfer would be in place. > >> > >> But what Johannes stated doing is the legal ground. A git commit is a > >> copy > >> of the source, if that copy contains the ASL license instead of the > >> BSL, > >> the ASL terms apply. So the last commit on branch before BSL merge is > >> safe. > >> > >> Which is the legal ground for this whole endeavor anyway. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Thu, Nov 3, 2022, 12:44 PJ Fanning <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >>> The original PR was created before the license was changed. I think > >>> it > >>> should be safe to take into pekko-http, especially since Johannes > >>> who > >>> wrote the original PR is and is offering to help with getting it > >>> into > >>> pekko-http. > >>> > >>> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 at 12:29, Alexandru Nedelcu <[email protected]> > >>> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Hi, > >>>> > >>>> I’m resending this message from the “right” email address > >>>> 🙂 > >>>> sorry for the duplicate… > >>>> > >>>> On 3 Nov 2022, at 12:07, Johannes Rudolph wrote: > >>>>> (Obviously, we should use the state of the scala-3 branch before > >>>>> the > >>>>> license change. Afterwards, a merge from main was added containing > >> the > >>>>> license change.) > >>>> > >>>> It would be great to merge that scala-3 branch. I think Akka-HTTP > >>>> is > >>>> what’s keeping us at $work from migrating to Scala 3 (plus other > >>>> annoyances, but this is the big one). > >>>> > >>>> However — I’d ask if we are allowed. > >>>> > >>>> I am not a lawyer. Does code in that PR represent code that’s > >>>> released > >>>> under APL-2.0? My hunch is that there may be issues with this. > >>>> > >>>> I think we should ask someone with legal expertise if we are > >>>> allowed. > >>>> Can ASF help? > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> Alexandru Nedelcu > >>>> https://alexn.org > >>> > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > >>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >>> > >>> > >> > > > -- > Alexandru Nedelcu > https://alexn.org >
