Dear Legal team, I would like to help the Apache FOP team integrate a file that would be useful to the functionality of that program. The FOP developers agree (https://fop-dev.markmail.org/message/dvecogtzopykszlu), assuming that we can ensure that it is legally permissible to reuse that file under the usual Apache licencing terms.
The file is “french.lh” (the original name of “fr.xml”), part of the Lout software (https://sourceforge.net/projects/lout/). It can be found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/lout/files/lout/3.40/, lout- 3.40.tar.gz, in the hyph folder. The file “french.lh” in turn is “derived from an earlier version of frhyph.tex”, as indicated at https://svn.lal.in2p3.fr/LCG/QWG/External/offo-hyphenation-fop-1.0/licenses.html#fr. The header of the file “frhyph.tex”, available at https://ctan.org/tex-archive/language/hyphenation/, mentions: “This file is available for free and can used and redistributed asis for free. Modified versions should have another name.” The author of the file “french.lh” (http://jeffreykingston.id.au/) wrote in an e-mail to me that he has modified only the first part of the file (the rest as we know is what became the frhyph.tex file), and that he is ready to place his modifications into the public domain (here is the exact quote: “File french.lh was not really made by me. There is a small amount of trivial stuff at the top that I added, but when you get down to line 63 it is just a TeX hyphenation file written by someone else. So that makes the license not my business, I believe. The first 62 lines were made by me and I hereby place them into the public domain.”) In return, I asked him whether he could be willing to sign an ICLA to Apache so that his contribution could be reused easily. I also asked him to “confirm to me that you have the copyright on that work. If you did that work under a contract for some company, that company probably owns the copyright.” He replied: “Sorry, I'm not into paperwork. I've already stated in an email that I have placed those lines into the public domain. And I did write them myself and I was not contracted to anyone else.” I can of course forward our e-mail conversation if someone wants to investigate further. It seems to me that the declaration of the author that he places his work into the public domain, together with the indication in the header of the file “frhyph.tex”, allows integrating the “french.lh” file into the code base of the FOP project. Indeed, the Apache policy, https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html, reads: “You can include works in the public domain (or covered by a license treated similarly) within Apache products. (…) A work should be treated as being in the public domain when (…) the work is covered by (…) a suitable dedication (to the public domain) by the authors”. But a confirmation from Apache legal team would be most welcome to make sure that this reasoning is correct (as requested by the FOP team). Thank you for your time.
