subject:"What is the legal basis for enforcing release policies at ASF\?"

Re: What is the legal basis for enforcing release policies at ASF?

2015-08-25 Thread William A Rowe Jr

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:00 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote:


  On Aug 20, 2015, at 10:23 AM, Benson Margulies bimargul...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote:
  Coming in late.
 
  A snapshot is not a release. Licenses kick in at distribution/
  release.
 
  Are you sure? When you have a public source control repo, with a
  LICENSE file at the top, I would think that this counts as a legal
  'publication' under the terms of the license.
 
  if not, just what is the legal status of source code snipped from our
  repositories?
 

 A file that exists on a public source repo, with an associated
 license is, of course, covered under that license. The issue is
 what is the combined, derivative work under? I can, for example,
 take a handful of ALv2 files, combine them as-is and license
 the WORK as GPLv3 for example.

 Furthermore, a release should have such things as a NOTICE file,
 etc, as required. Again, no idea if that is included in a snap-shot
 or not.

 A release is such that the release artifact is verified as
 compliant w/ the ALv2, and is an official action of the foundation;
 A snapshot may or not be verified but for sure is not an
 official action and the person providing the snapshot does
 so at their own risk.


I was working from some significant miss-assumptions which I won't go into
here, to avoid confusing other readers, not unless I understand things
thoroughly.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote:


 I did NOT SAY that... holy moley. I said that licenses kick in
 at a release, but I not not say that they don't kick-in at
 other times; also, a release is guaranteed to be under ALv2
 (it is our work) and there is no guarantee on said snapshot,
 depending on how it is created.


Yes, I should have given your statement the benefit of the doubt.  Whether
your statement had been incomplete, outright wrong, or absolutely on point,
my venting was inexcusable.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:04 AM, Jim Jagielski j...@jagunet.com wrote:


 Cut it out.


I apologize to you for my antagonistic tone.  It was a combination of being
several days deep into a head cold, and fundamentally misunderstanding the
provenance of svn.

Re: What is the legal basis for enforcing release policies at ASF?

2015-08-25 Thread Andrea Pescetti


Roman Shaposhnik wrote:

On the other hand, somebody taking said snapshot and releasing it under the
name Project BOO, licensed under the ALv2. Is something that both the ALv2
license AND our trademark policy are totally fine with.


What if (not a fictional example; a real case) the code is taken from a 
branch that comes from a recent code donation and source headers are 
still in the process of being updated to comply with the donation? 
Waiting for that code to be included in a formal release for sure solves 
the problem. But if one doesn't want to wait, I wouldn't know what to 
suggest.


Regards,
  Andrea.

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Re: What is the legal basis for enforcing release policies at ASF?

2015-08-25 Thread Roman Shaposhnik

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Dennis E. Hamilton
dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote:
[Failing at dealing with this cross-posted and variously-branched discussion
on two lists,
so I am doing it too. Also OT with respect to Ross's declaration, but it has
to do with the
fact that release is not so well distinguished as one might hope.]

Minor nit? #1:

Generally, because of what is seen in the repository in terms of LICENSE and
NOTICE placement, it appears to apply to everything at and below that point in
the repository. A casual observer cannot tell that there is an important
ceremonial
distinction with regard to using the archived packaging of an approved Apache
Release.

I was thinking exactly that while reading the thread. Now, to be fair,
most of the
time statements made by both of these are correct. I actually haven't seen that
much licensing issues with TLP during release cycles.

Not-so-minor nit? #2:

Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
under one or more contributor license agreements.
See the NOTICE file **distributed** with this work
for additional information regarding copyright
ownership. The ASF licenses this file to you under
the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the 'License') at
the very top of many individual files in typical ASF
Project repositories.

Yup. That goes back to the clarification I've just requested
from Ross. 'cuz I agree -- I can see it being interpreted
in more than one way.

Techno-legal nit? #3:

From http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt:

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.

** emphasis mine in both places

Great point. I haven't connected the dots with ICLAs myself,
but it totally makes sense to talk about ICLA since it is the
document that governs the ingest point of new contributions.

Avoiding the nit-pickers by picking more nit? #4

A while back, because I was concerned that some user of a contribution of
mine might be trapped in a hair splitting between distribution,
non-distribution, and released I made a supplemental declaration. I
provided a copy to the Secretary of the Foundation on 2013-03-08.

This broader statement grants to **all parties obtaining** any past or future
ASF **contribution** of mine effectively the same copyright license granted
under the iCLA without the condition that it be distributed by the
Foundation. You can see it in all of its glory at
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/openoffice-dev/201303.mbox/%3c008801ce1c21$0deb3560$29c1a020$@apache.org%3e.
This is not the same as an ALv2 license, but it basically gives to all of
those parties the same terms as provided to the ASF under the iCLA
(technically not an ALv2 license either).

I have made a comparable declaration by any contribution I might make to
LibreOffice. I have *not* provided LibreOffice with the dual MPL-LGPL
license declaration they tend to request. (The receipt of that declaration
has not been acknowledged, but I stand behind it.)

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