On Sun, Jun 05, 2011 at 12:12:59PM +0100, Ian Lynch wrote: > I don't see how it is possible to "take it all back" Once licensed that code > and subsequent derivatives are not in their control. Just like LO can go on > developing as before. If they fork the project under their own new license, > yes they could make a proprietary version but then so can anyone. I don't > see that in Oracles plans - if it was why bother with ASF at all? To drag in > some developers?
Because Apache does not require copyright assignment, Oracle retains copyright on the materials that they have licensed to the ASF under the terms of the software grant. However, once the commits start on the new podling, Oracle will only have the right to use the ever-expanding delta under the same terms as everyone else. They can maintain their own proprietary fork incorporating the ASF product, but they cannot *prevent* anyone else from competing with them by doing the same. A common read of Oracle's recent actions is that they plan to wash their hands of OO.o, but for the sake of argument let's imagine that that's not the case and that they plan to sell a proprietary version. Yes, they get "free" development from all the people contributing to the ASF codebase, but they do not get *exclusive* rights to use those contributions, and thus those "free" contributions confer limited commercial marketplace advantage. > > And just in case that is not clear to some readers: If you contribute code > > under the Apache License, you might just as well have contributed that > > code to Oracle with copyright assigignment. The copryright assignment was > > there only to nullify the protection granted to you by the GPL as far as > > the assignee (Oracle) is concerned. Apache License achieve the same thing, > > just more straight forwardly, with a much more polish PR spin on it. > > > > So if you had objection to contribute to Oracle under these terms you > > should be just as reluctant to contribute anything under the Apache > > License. > > > > I'll let the Apache people reply to that as they are much better qualified > to do so than I am. Consolidation of copyright in the hands of one entity enables unilateral relicensing. We have all just seen that in action with Oracle's software grant of the OO.o codebase under ALv2 to the ASF, but it was also in evidence earlier when Oracle licensed OO.o to IBM for use as the basis for Lotus Symphony. Now that Oracle has signed the ALv2 software grant and made the codebase available under an attribution-based, permissive license, IBM doesn't need the previous privately negotiated arrangement. The relicensing revenue stream has been closed off for Oracle. Any code that you contribute to the ASF will similarly, not be available for a commercial entity to relicense. For this and other reasons, licensing your code to the ASF is very different from assigning copyright to Oracle. It is true that code that contribute to the ASF may be used in proprietary products, which some people may find objectionable for various reasons. However, having a foundation such as the ASF or TDF serve as the custodian for projects where copyright ownership is distributed throughout the community imposes constraints that are not in place when copyrights are consolidated in the hands of a single commercial entity. Disclaimer: I participate in ASF projects, but I'm speaking as just some guy on the internet trying to help everyone out. Marvin Humphrey -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
