About the NOTICE file:
I've added a new column to the page with the OFBiz's library list:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Libraries+Included+in+OFBiz
where we can put information about the notice needed.
I put there the one for JDBM; then I've tried to do some research for
other libraries and I've added my comments there: I wrote "None" where I
think that no notice is needed, and "?????" where I think that maybe we
need to add something...
all in all I still don't understand exactly what to do, I'm sorry.
Finally I've downloaded the NOTICE file of the Apache Geronimo project
(attached to this message) to see an example of a notice file from a big
project (with a lot of external libraries included).
I think it's interesting (for example they also include the notice for
the JDBM jar); one think that concerned me is that they have added a
notice message for the Derby jars (that are licensed under the
ASL2.0)... does this mean that we have to review the licenses of all the
jars licensed under Apache License, because they could ask to include a
notice message?
Jacopo
David E Jones wrote:
On Oct 8, 2006, at 5:35 PM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
David, all,
when will we vote for a new Test Snapshot Release?
Here is a list of open tasks (some of them are minor and/or optional),
based on feedback from the Incubator's guys:
*** From Leo Simons ***
1) You're shipping various libraries and stuff which I know include
NOTICE files of their own, but those notices are not found or
referenced anywhere outside their jars (for example ant.jar has a
META-INF/NOTICE.txt). I would say the NOTICE file should point to
those other notice files that exist somewhere deep within such a big
distribution, but I think that's maybe not a legal requirement.
2) I downloaded the tgz. I always get annoyed when a software release
doesn't extract into an obvious name. Eg `tar zxf apache-of* && cd
apache-of*` should work. Probably a religious subject.
3) the statistical sample (random clicking) of files I opened all have
"copyright 2001-2006 The ASF". I suspect that's wrong, since IIRC
ofbiz wasn't @ apache in 2001. The year 2001 should probably be
replaced by the year when development of ofbiz started @ apache.
4) even if you don't branch, you should really do an `svn tag` for any
release (even RCs). Tagging is basically free, and it provides that
much more clarity on 'what is what'
*** From Robert Burren Donkin ***
5) FYI a source distribution is required but i'm assume that you know
how to svn export
And here are my comments:
#1: completing the NOTICE file is the last big task that we have to
do... and I'm not sure to understand what we have to do to complete it.
This is the big one. I started working on this and trying to get a
better idea of what is required in it. According to the AL2 text it
sounds like we need to include all notices in NOTICE files of other
projects included in OFBiz, plus any other notices required by any of
the licenses for projects we include, independent of whatever NOTICE
that project may or may not have.
For the second part there was one good example with JDBM where it says
in the license that if you include it in a larger work you have to have
a "notice" that the project is included in the larger and where it comes
from, hence the current JDBM notice. We should review the licenses in
the LICENSE file and see if any others require this...
I haven't started copying NOTICE content from other project's NOTICE
files into our NOTICE file, so that needs to be done. This is the bulk
of the effort I think.
Once we do those 2 things we'll want to send a message to the
[EMAIL PROTECTED] list and ask for feedback on just the NOTICE and
LICENSE files, and then once we get positive feedback we can do another
the TS4.
#2, #4 are suggestions that we can include to the TSR process (as
documented in the doc site) and can be considered when preparing the
release files.
#2 should be easy. I'm not sure if I like the idea of tagging test
snapshots. These have almost no value for future reference, and I don't
want to imply that they do because someone might take that tag as a
stamp of approval for use as a basis for customization or other efforts...
When we do a real release, then yes we'll want to branch.
#5: even if I don't agree with some of Robert's arguments for asking
this, I think that we can easily create such a file for the release
This is interesting... but maybe more for the framework than the
complete package. We do have to distribute the source, but as far as I
could tell from follow on discussion a separate archive is not required
and many projects at the ASF don't do it.
#3: if you want I can work on this... what is the correct copyright
notice that should be used instead?
I'm not sure about this one either... Technically we all granted a
copyright license with out CLAs and that goes back to whenever we
started writing the code, which was 2001. Not all files go back to that
date so for many this is not accurate. Still, my vote is to not touch it
unless someone really thinks this is important and wants to crusade on
it a bit. That crusade would involved asking the ASF legal group and
getting a more official opinion/mandate on it...
So, in short, I'd say that the most important thing is the NOTICE file
which still needs a bit of work. The #2 thing for the directory in the
archive should be easy to accommodate. Other than that I think we not
worry about it right now. That's just my opinion though...
-David
