Legality of committed code (was: [OT] What are we doing here?)

[Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>]

Hi,

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 8:03 AM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
> ...I think the ASF has a process for checking the legality of all of our code
> before we graduate.  But when donating, I believe it is up to you to follow
> the rules.  Large donations require a software grant stating you have
> permission.  When you signed your ICLA you said you had permission to do
> significant work.  When folks submit patches they theoretically have checked
> a box that they have the right to submit the code in the patch....

To clarify, every time someone commits code here they do so under the
iCLA that they signed (http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt) in
which they state that they are legally entitled to grant a license to
the ASF, and that the code is their original creation.

If committing a patch that was submitted in JIRA, one should refer to
the issue number and it's good to include the name of the contributor
in the commit comments so that credit is given. As long as it's clear
that that was a voluntary contribution, you're fine (which also
applies to patch sent to this list if it's clear that their author
means to contribute them).

The IP clearance and software grants are needed when bringing external
codebases in to the ASF, as stated at
http://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/index.html
That definitely applies to the Flex framework that Adobe donated, but
if a committer contributes a big chunk of their own code it's not
needed.

-Bertrand