What is ASF position on plagiarism

[Dmitriy Lyubimov <dl...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

our project has uncovered evidence that one of publishers has recently
published a book full of rampant plagiarism of our project manual. There is
a chapter where almost all examples are copied word for word from examples
in our manual. So are most comment to them. The book inherited even our
occasional style problems, so cut-and-paste action cannot be called into
question. All material is taken from ASF website.

Aside from obvious ethical concerns, my understanding is Apache 2.0 license
is ok with verbatim quoting as long as attribution is made. I assume Apache
2.0 is also automatically applicable to all ASF web and documentation
content as well. I found no indication of such attribution (aside from the
fact that the book alleges to teach how to use our project).

What's position of ASF in such cases?

Feel free to contact us for further details if needed.

Thank you.
-Dmitriy

Re: What is ASF position on plagiarism

[Dmitriy Lyubimov <dl...@gmail.com>]

No, books generally don't reproduce Apache 2 license. Presumably because
they are not using any code beyond fair use. This one doesn't have either
attributions nor license either. At least its electronic form in Safari
subscription. It just heavily copies the code and comments (in one chapter
at least). By heavily i mean over 90% on code in a particular chapter and
over 60% on text, by my approximate judgement.

ok I understand the position. thank you.

-Dmitriy

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>
wrote:

> The intent of the ASF's licensing policy is that any content (including
> documentation) developed directly by Apache projects is licensed under
> the Apache 2.0 license.  Thus, unless there is some content in an Apache
> project release or website that explicitly comes as a block from some
> outside author under one of the other acceptable licenses[1], every
> thing that Apache projects produce or display is under the Apache license.
>
> Thus, in the general sense, it is allowable (for example) for a
> publisher to re-publish an Apache project's website, as long as the
> publisher otherwise complies with our license in terms of providing the
> necessary LICENSE and NOTICE files or notices.
>
> If there are members of some Apache project *PMC* who have a specific
> legal question or complaint about how their project's IP is being used,
> then the best bet is to email the legal-internal@apache.org privately
> archived mailing list and that project's private@projectname.apache.org
> mailing list to ask a specific question.  But if it's merely about other
> people copying Apache licensed work, the answer is going to be that we
> allow that.
>
> Note that using the Apache license is a requirement for Apache projects.
>
> If there is a case where a publisher truly has copied content without
> *any* attribution or mention of the LICENSE, the likely course of action
> would be to have the VP of the project or the ASF's VP Legal to email
> the publisher to add the appropriate attribution.  In the majority of
> cases, publishers are happy to do this once the omission is pointed out
> to them.
>
> - Shane
>
> [1] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a
>
> On 7/20/15 8:56 PM, Dmitriy Lyubimov wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > our project has uncovered evidence that one of publishers has recently
> > published a book full of rampant plagiarism of our project manual. There
> is
> > a chapter where almost all examples are copied word for word from
> examples
> > in our manual. So are most comment to them. The book inherited even our
> > occasional style problems, so cut-and-paste action cannot be called into
> > question. All material is taken from ASF website.
> >
> > Aside from obvious ethical concerns, my understanding is Apache 2.0
> license
> > is ok with verbatim quoting as long as attribution is made. I assume
> Apache
> > 2.0 is also automatically applicable to all ASF web and documentation
> > content as well. I found no indication of such attribution (aside from
> the
> > fact that the book alleges to teach how to use our project).
> >
> > What's position of ASF in such cases?
> >
> > Feel free to contact us for further details if needed.
> >
> > Thank you.
> > -Dmitriy
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
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>

Re: What is ASF position on plagiarism

[Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>]

The intent of the ASF's licensing policy is that any content (including
documentation) developed directly by Apache projects is licensed under
the Apache 2.0 license.  Thus, unless there is some content in an Apache
project release or website that explicitly comes as a block from some
outside author under one of the other acceptable licenses[1], every
thing that Apache projects produce or display is under the Apache license.

Thus, in the general sense, it is allowable (for example) for a
publisher to re-publish an Apache project's website, as long as the
publisher otherwise complies with our license in terms of providing the
necessary LICENSE and NOTICE files or notices.

If there are members of some Apache project *PMC* who have a specific
legal question or complaint about how their project's IP is being used,
then the best bet is to email the legal-internal@apache.org privately
archived mailing list and that project's private@projectname.apache.org
mailing list to ask a specific question.  But if it's merely about other
people copying Apache licensed work, the answer is going to be that we
allow that.

Note that using the Apache license is a requirement for Apache projects.

If there is a case where a publisher truly has copied content without
*any* attribution or mention of the LICENSE, the likely course of action
would be to have the VP of the project or the ASF's VP Legal to email
the publisher to add the appropriate attribution.  In the majority of
cases, publishers are happy to do this once the omission is pointed out
to them.

- Shane

[1] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a

On 7/20/15 8:56 PM, Dmitriy Lyubimov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> our project has uncovered evidence that one of publishers has recently
> published a book full of rampant plagiarism of our project manual. There is
> a chapter where almost all examples are copied word for word from examples
> in our manual. So are most comment to them. The book inherited even our
> occasional style problems, so cut-and-paste action cannot be called into
> question. All material is taken from ASF website.
> 
> Aside from obvious ethical concerns, my understanding is Apache 2.0 license
> is ok with verbatim quoting as long as attribution is made. I assume Apache
> 2.0 is also automatically applicable to all ASF web and documentation
> content as well. I found no indication of such attribution (aside from the
> fact that the book alleges to teach how to use our project).
> 
> What's position of ASF in such cases?
> 
> Feel free to contact us for further details if needed.
> 
> Thank you.
> -Dmitriy


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