Re: [CONFIG FILES] License headers

[Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>]

I have just bumped the thread on legal-discuss about this issue.

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org> wrote:

> We can't disavow copyright on files because we don't consider them
> creative works.
>
> What we can do, however, is use a simple persmissive license, like this:
>
> "Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are
> permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and
> this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any
> warranty."
>
> I have taken this from here:
>
>
> http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices-for-Other-Files.html
>
> I can follow this up on legal-discuss if people are interested in using
> this in our config files.
>
> For third party files (anything more complex than key, value assignments)
> we cannot add our own license header. But we should be making a note of the
> author, copyright, and parent project URL in the NOTICE file, as I mention
> on another thread.
>
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 8:13 PM, Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012, at 01:53 PM, Chiradeep Vittal wrote:
>> > There is a long list of blocker bugs [1] regarding the configuration
>> > files checked in to the repository. Some of the bugs ask that the Apache
>> > License header be inserted into the config file if it is indeed resolved
>> > as "written specifically for CloudStack".
>> >
>> > My question is whether this is necessary —
>> >
>> >  1.  Almost all configuration files in the universe do not have a
>> license
>> >  header, this seems to break convention
>> >  2.  It may make it harder to compare CloudStack configurations with
>> >  "stock" configuration files
>>
>> If we want to be extra-cautious without putting undue noise in the
>> configuration files, could we simply put something in the NOTICE file
>> like this?
>>
>> "Configuration files for third-party programs written specifically for
>> distribution with Apache CloudStack are provided under the Apache
>> Software License 2.0"
>>
>> or
>>
>> "Configuration files for third-party programs written specifically for
>> distribution with Apache CloudStack are not considered to be under
>> copyright. You may use, modify, and distribute those files without
>> restriction."
>>
>> The second would be my preference as I am of the opinion configuration
>> files are not expressive works, but data and should not be encumbered by
>> copyright. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so my opinion is just that -
>> opinion - and not legal guidance. (It *does* seem to be the pervasive
>> view with most FOSS communities, though.)
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Joe
>> --
>> Joe Brockmeier
>> jzb@zonker.net
>> Twitter: @jzb
>> http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
>>
>
>
>
> --
> NS
>



-- 
NS

Re: [CONFIG FILES] License headers

[Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>]

I am following it up on legal-discuss mainly for myself at this point. I
think it would be cool if the ASF had a smaller approved boilerplate for
circumstances such as this. And if the thread results in one (which I am
not hopeful for) then we could, at some point pre or post 4.0 simplify the
config files even further. This isn't a 4.0 blocker though.

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 4, 2012, at 10:03 AM, Chip Childers wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>
> wrote:
> > I think that Joe was suggesting something that might not be needed, in
> > an attempt to simplify our process of getting to a release.  (Joe,
> > please clarify if I am misrepresenting your aim there).
>
> You are not, totally correct. Was just trying to simplify the process.
>
> Now if we can just get clarity on export. Sigh.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joe
> --
> Joe Brockmeier
> jzb@zonker.net
> Twitter: @jzb
> http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
>



-- 
NS

Re: [CONFIG FILES] License headers

[Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net>]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012, at 10:03 AM, Chip Childers wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> I think that Joe was suggesting something that might not be needed, in
> an attempt to simplify our process of getting to a release.  (Joe,
> please clarify if I am misrepresenting your aim there).

You are not, totally correct. Was just trying to simplify the process. 

Now if we can just get clarity on export. Sigh. 

Thanks,

Joe
-- 
Joe Brockmeier
jzb@zonker.net
Twitter: @jzb
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/

Re: [CONFIG FILES] License headers

[Chip Childers <ch...@sungard.com>]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> I have just bumped the thread on legal-discuss about this issue.

I'm not sure there is any issue outstanding here.  We have the header
in all of the CloudStack source code files (exclusive of those files
owned by other projects), and most of the config files.  For the
config files that don't have the header, we're following the
convention that other ASF projects follow...  namely, we don't put the
header in simple key/value pair files.

I think that Joe was suggesting something that might not be needed, in
an attempt to simplify our process of getting to a release.  (Joe,
please clarify if I am misrepresenting your aim there).

IMO, this is a non-issue.


> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org> wrote:
>
>> We can't disavow copyright on files because we don't consider them
>> creative works.
>>
>> What we can do, however, is use a simple persmissive license, like this:
>>
>> "Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are
>> permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and
>> this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any
>> warranty."
>>
>> I have taken this from here:
>>
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices-for-Other-Files.html
>>
>> I can follow this up on legal-discuss if people are interested in using
>> this in our config files.
>>
>> For third party files (anything more complex than key, value assignments)
>> we cannot add our own license header. But we should be making a note of the
>> author, copyright, and parent project URL in the NOTICE file, as I mention
>> on another thread.
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 8:13 PM, Joe Brockmeier <jz...@zonker.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012, at 01:53 PM, Chiradeep Vittal wrote:
>>> > There is a long list of blocker bugs [1] regarding the configuration
>>> > files checked in to the repository. Some of the bugs ask that the Apache
>>> > License header be inserted into the config file if it is indeed resolved
>>> > as "written specifically for CloudStack".
>>> >
>>> > My question is whether this is necessary —
>>> >
>>> >  1.  Almost all configuration files in the universe do not have a
>>> license
>>> >  header, this seems to break convention
>>> >  2.  It may make it harder to compare CloudStack configurations with
>>> >  "stock" configuration files
>>>
>>> If we want to be extra-cautious without putting undue noise in the
>>> configuration files, could we simply put something in the NOTICE file
>>> like this?
>>>
>>> "Configuration files for third-party programs written specifically for
>>> distribution with Apache CloudStack are provided under the Apache
>>> Software License 2.0"
>>>
>>> or
>>>
>>> "Configuration files for third-party programs written specifically for
>>> distribution with Apache CloudStack are not considered to be under
>>> copyright. You may use, modify, and distribute those files without
>>> restriction."
>>>
>>> The second would be my preference as I am of the opinion configuration
>>> files are not expressive works, but data and should not be encumbered by
>>> copyright. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so my opinion is just that -
>>> opinion - and not legal guidance. (It *does* seem to be the pervasive
>>> view with most FOSS communities, though.)
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Joe
>>> --
>>> Joe Brockmeier
>>> jzb@zonker.net
>>> Twitter: @jzb
>>> http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> NS
>>
>
>
>
> --
> NS