ASF Process

[Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org>]

We received this question, along with some questions about the legality of 
some code in Jakarta Commons Net.

"What is the process for Apache contributor to follow before using any 
other open source? "

It's not something for which the answer jumps to mind, because our rather 
organic methods of oversight etc feel quite weak when I try to describe 
them as a process. ie, my thought was to answer with:

"Process-wise, the community around a codebase is sensitive to 
dependencies on other open-source projects and question the addition when 
the legalities are non-obvious.

When committers have questions, a mailing list (legal-discuss) exists to 
talk unofficially with other committers and lawyers; and Cliff Schmidt, 
our VP of Legal Affairs, exists to channel the official answer to the ASF 
legal represenation. "

Is that a fair couple of paragraphs?

Hen

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