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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org> on 2016/12/15 00:10:32 UTC
What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Hi,
So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in some forums,
not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to represent? Is
it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
John
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)"
mean?
Posted by Andy Seaborne <an...@apache.org>.
For an arbitrary github repo, it could be a simple slip-up: they should
be using the other header (from the end of the license page) which does
not mention the foundation.
(I found it confusing when starting that the license mentions this text
... then the header text for ASF projects is different.)
Andy
On 15/12/16 02:10, John D. Ament wrote:
> Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <roman@shaposhnik.org
> <ma...@shaposhnik.org>> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> <johndament@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> some forums,
> > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> represent? Is
> > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
>
> My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> US) to transfer
> the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> The copyright
> itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> (license) to be free
> to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> re-licensing and
> it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> <ma...@apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> <ma...@apache.org>
>
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Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>.
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 6:45 PM, Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org> wrote:
> It means that the ASF has been granted rights to the software under various
> contributor licenses (ICLA, CCLA, clause 5 of the Apache license). I'd avoid
> using the word 'transfer' to describe the action as that implies that the
> original owner has somehow decreased the rights they have to the software.
>
> I don't believe the clause on its own grants any kind of license. It feels
> to me that someone can put "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
> under one or more contributor license agreements" on the top of their code
> in GitHub, but if there isn't some form of contribution license between the
> ASF and that someone, then it's just a wrong statement.
FWIW: this is my interpretation as well: IOW this has to be a
transaction. Not only
you need to indicate your intent to license it out to ASF, but the ASF
has to agree
to reciprocate. For new code bases and sizable code donations to
existing projects
that reciprocation is an accepted SGA. For incremental contributions
it happens to
be, at least in my opinion, a combination of ICLA and the fact that
you're pushing
to an ASF controlled infrastructure.
Thanks,
Roman.
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Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org>.
It means that the ASF has been granted rights to the software under various
contributor licenses (ICLA, CCLA, clause 5 of the Apache license). I'd
avoid using the word 'transfer' to describe the action as that implies that
the original owner has somehow decreased the rights they have to the
software.
I don't believe the clause on its own grants any kind of license. It feels
to me that someone can put "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation
(ASF) under one or more contributor license agreements" on the top of their
code in GitHub, but if there isn't some form of contribution license
between the ASF and that someone, then it's just a wrong statement.
Also interesting is the older Apache 1.1 world where folk on Sourceforge
would put Copyright Apache Software Foundation at the top of their code.
Lots of folk were giving gifts to us, but as we weren't accepting them
they, presumably, weren't really owned by Apache.
Hen
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 6:10 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>
wrote:
> Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in some
>> forums,
>> > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
>> represent? Is
>> > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
>>
>> My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
>> US) to transfer
>> the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
>> The copyright
>> itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
>> (license) to be free
>> to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
>> re-licensing and
>> it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Roman.
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>
>>
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)"
mean?
Posted by Mark Struberg <st...@yahoo.de.INVALID>.
In that specific case it's very clear.
That pieces of code have been originally written at the ASF from ASF committers and was about to get extracted into a new module at the ASF (geronimo) before it was shut down by someone...
So no, that 'licensed to the ASF' is exactly as it was intended. There is no room for any other interpretation as the original authors intended it exactly that way.
LieGrue,
strub
> Am 15.12.2016 um 04:39 schrieb John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>:
>
> Shane,
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org> wrote:
> John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> > Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> > (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> > technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
> Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
> least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
> about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
> to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
> in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
> right?)
>
> ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
> and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
> to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
>
> For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
> license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
> define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
> usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
> sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
> code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
> in a release.
>
> In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
> repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
> as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
>
> Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
> this in the code as per our source header policy:
>
> https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
>
> But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
> with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
> how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
> from some podling/project?
>
> Ha... wish it were that simple.
> I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to Eclipse Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement "that doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
>
>
> - Shane
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <roman@shaposhnik.org
> > <ma...@shaposhnik.org>> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> > <johndament@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> > some forums,
> > > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> > represent? Is
> > > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
> >
> > My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> > US) to transfer
> > the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> > The copyright
> > itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> > (license) to be free
> > to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> > re-licensing and
> > it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Roman.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> >
>
>
> --
>
> - Shane
> https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:40 AM Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:39 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>
> wrote:
>
> Shane,
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>
> wrote:
>
> John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> > Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> > (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> > technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
> Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
> least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
> about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
> to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
> in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
> right?)
>
> ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
> and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
> to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
>
> For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
> license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
> define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
> usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
> sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
> code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
> in a release.
>
> In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
> repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
> as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
>
> Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
> this in the code as per our source header policy:
>
> https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
>
> But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
> with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
> how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
> from some podling/project?
>
>
> Ha... wish it were that simple.
> I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to
> Eclipse Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the
> Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement
> "that doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse
> representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the
> Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the
> statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
>
>
>
> Helps a lot to include the actual text btw and not just a reference.
>
> ie) Whether it was the Licensed to text, or the full Apache source header.
>
> Also if it's about a specific issue, talking about the specific issue is
> better than generics :) Sounds like the issue has been resolved.
>
More or less, resolved. For what its worth, it was verbatim what is
treated as the normal ASF code header.
/*
* 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"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
* the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
>
> Hen
>
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org>.
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:39 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>
wrote:
> Shane,
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>
> wrote:
>
>> John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
>> > Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
>> > (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
>> > technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>>
>> Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
>> least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
>> about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
>> to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
>> in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
>> right?)
>>
>> ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
>> and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
>> to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
>>
>> For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
>> license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
>> define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
>> usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
>> sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
>> code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
>> in a release.
>>
>> In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
>> repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
>> as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
>>
>> Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
>> this in the code as per our source header policy:
>>
>> https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
>>
>> But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
>> with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
>> how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
>>
>> Does that make sense?
>>
>> Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
>> from some podling/project?
>>
>
> Ha... wish it were that simple.
> I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to
> Eclipse Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the
> Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement
> "that doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse
> representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the
> Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the
> statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
>
>
Helps a lot to include the actual text btw and not just a reference.
ie) Whether it was the Licensed to text, or the full Apache source header.
Also if it's about a specific issue, talking about the specific issue is
better than generics :) Sounds like the issue has been resolved.
Hen
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
Alex,
Yes, "ownership" is the wrong term to use here. My fault.
John
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 11:55 PM Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
> FWIW, I saw the term "ownership" used upthread. AIUI, "ownership" and
> "copyright" are not transferred to the ASF. Permission is being granted to
> make copies and derivative works, etc.
>
> IANAL, but my mental model is that every line of code is owned and
> copyright by the individual or entity that contributed under ICLA and maybe
> CCLA, and/or SGA. No matter how that code moves around, without another
> agreement explicitly transferring ownership/copyright, all you have are
> rights to copy and rules about how to attribute derivatives.
>
> In your case of code going into an Eclipse Foundation repo, the ALv2 gives
> them the right to do so. There are plenty of MIT-licensed files in ASF
> repos that don't have the ASF header because the files haven't been
> explicitly granted to us and are treated as third-party. If the Eclipse
> Foundation is treating the code as third-party and leaving the header
> untouched, that should be fine. If they want to change the header, that
> might be a potential issue.
>
> Of course, I could be wrong…
>
> -Alex
>
> From: "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>
> Reply-To: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>
> Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 7:39 PM
> To: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>
> Subject: Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)"
> mean?
>
> Shane,
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>
> wrote:
>
> John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> > Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> > (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> > technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
> Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
> least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
> about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
> to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
> in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
> right?)
>
> ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
> and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
> to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
>
> For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
> license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
> define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
> usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
> sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
> code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
> in a release.
>
> In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
> repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
> as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
>
> Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
> this in the code as per our source header policy:
>
> https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
>
> But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
> with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
> how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
> from some podling/project?
>
>
> Ha... wish it were that simple.
> I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to
> Eclipse Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the
> Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement
> "that doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse
> representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the
> Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the
> statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
>
>
>
> - Shane
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <roman@shaposhnik.org
> > <ma...@shaposhnik.org>> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> > <johndament@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> > some forums,
> > > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> > represent? Is
> > > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
> >
> > My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> > US) to transfer
> > the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> > The copyright
> > itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> > (license) to be free
> > to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> > re-licensing and
> > it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Roman.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> >
>
>
> --
>
> - Shane
> https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)"
mean?
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
FWIW, I saw the term "ownership" used upthread. AIUI, "ownership" and "copyright" are not transferred to the ASF. Permission is being granted to make copies and derivative works, etc.
IANAL, but my mental model is that every line of code is owned and copyright by the individual or entity that contributed under ICLA and maybe CCLA, and/or SGA. No matter how that code moves around, without another agreement explicitly transferring ownership/copyright, all you have are rights to copy and rules about how to attribute derivatives.
In your case of code going into an Eclipse Foundation repo, the ALv2 gives them the right to do so. There are plenty of MIT-licensed files in ASF repos that don't have the ASF header because the files haven't been explicitly granted to us and are treated as third-party. If the Eclipse Foundation is treating the code as third-party and leaving the header untouched, that should be fine. If they want to change the header, that might be a potential issue.
Of course, I could be wrong…
-Alex
From: "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>>
Reply-To: "legal-discuss@apache.org<ma...@apache.org>" <le...@apache.org>>
Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 7:39 PM
To: "legal-discuss@apache.org<ma...@apache.org>" <le...@apache.org>>
Subject: Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Shane,
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>> wrote:
John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
right?)
ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
in a release.
In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
this in the code as per our source header policy:
https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
Does that make sense?
Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
from some podling/project?
Ha... wish it were that simple.
I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to Eclipse Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement "that doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
- Shane
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>
> <ma...@shaposhnik.org>>> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> <jo...@apache.org> <ma...@apache.org>>> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> some forums,
> > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> represent? Is
> > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
>
> My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> US) to transfer
> the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> The copyright
> itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> (license) to be free
> to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> re-licensing and
> it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org<ma...@apache.org>
> <ma...@apache.org>>
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org<ma...@apache.org>
> <ma...@apache.org>>
>
--
- Shane
https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
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Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
Shane,
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:21 PM Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org> wrote:
> John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> > Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> > (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> > technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
>
> Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
> least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
> about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
> to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
> in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
> right?)
>
> ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
> and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
> to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
>
> For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
> license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
> define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
> usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
> sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
> code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
> in a release.
>
> In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
> repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
> as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
>
> Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
> this in the code as per our source header policy:
>
> https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
>
> But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
> with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
> how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
> from some podling/project?
>
Ha... wish it were that simple.
I'm asking because a community I'm working with.. that just went to Eclipse
Foundation... has a bunch of code in it that says "Licensed to the Apache
Software Foundation (ASF)" as its header. I made the statement "that
doesn't look right" and the response received (from an eclipse
representative) was that it was an implicit licensing of the work under the
Apache License, v2. That doesn't sound quite right to me, but the
statement hat it's an implicit license grant makes more sense.
>
> - Shane
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <roman@shaposhnik.org
> > <ma...@shaposhnik.org>> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> > <johndament@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> > some forums,
> > > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> > represent? Is
> > > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
> >
> > My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> > US) to transfer
> > the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> > The copyright
> > itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> > (license) to be free
> > to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> > re-licensing and
> > it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Roman.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> > <ma...@apache.org>
> >
>
>
> --
>
> - Shane
> https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)"
mean?
Posted by Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>.
John D. Ament wrote on 12/14/16 9:10 PM:
> Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
> (their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
> technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
Legally? Who knows. I'd bet almost all lawyers would say no, or at
least not without knowing more about the specific code you're talking
about. In particular, that exact phrase doesn't say *how* it's licensed
to the ASF (and we're already presuming that the legal owner of the code
in that file is the one who authorized that statement to be put there,
right?)
ASF policy wise? Apache projects should generally only accept willingly
and specifically given contributions. So just because someone happened
to slap that on their github repo doesn't mean we should just grab it.
For the ASF and Apache projects, our IP provenance relies on both our
license, our ICLA/CCLAs, and the fact that we have written policies that
define who can be a committer and how PMCs can make releases. It's
usually good if a code author (or someone who could otherwise legally
sign an ICLA in terms of granting us the right licensing rights to that
code) actually submits the work to some Apache project before we put it
in a release.
In any case, I would *not* trust (IP provenance wise) arbitrary github
repos that include that line, unless they were also very clearly marked
as being under the Apache 2.0 license.
Obviously, for code that is *in* an Apache project, it should be saying
this in the code as per our source header policy:
https://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html
But that's because we know the committer who checked in the code, along
with that more explicit statement of how it was licensed to the ASF, and
how the ASF is releasing it under Apache 2.0.
Does that make sense?
Is this a general question out in the world, or a more specific question
from some podling/project?
- Shane
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <roman@shaposhnik.org
> <ma...@shaposhnik.org>> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament
> <johndament@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in
> some forums,
> > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to
> represent? Is
> > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
>
> My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> US) to transfer
> the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> The copyright
> itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> (license) to be free
> to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> re-licensing and
> it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> <ma...@apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> <ma...@apache.org>
>
--
- Shane
https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/resources
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by "John D. Ament" <jo...@apache.org>.
Ok, so that's what I thought. So if an arbitrary github repo includes
(their own developed source code) that includes this clause, they are
technically granting the ASF a license to use that code, right?
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>
wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org>
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in some
> forums,
> > not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to represent?
> Is
> > it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
>
> My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
> US) to transfer
> the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
> The copyright
> itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
> (license) to be free
> to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential
> re-licensing and
> it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
Re: What does "Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF)" mean?
Posted by Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>.
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:10 PM, John D. Ament <jo...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> So I'm wondering based on some questions being asked around in some forums,
> not all within the ASF, what is the legal statement meant to represent? Is
> it the ownership of code, that's how I've understood it.
My understanding is that it is a very basic legal tool (at least in
US) to transfer
the rights for a copyrighted piece of intellectual property to ASF.
The copyright
itself remains with the original owner, but ASF gets the right
(license) to be free
to do with that IP however it pleases (which includes potential re-licensing and
it fact happened at least once going from ALv1 -> ALv2).
Thanks,
Roman.
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