Attaching patch procedure has changed

[Karl Wright <da...@gmail.com>]

Folks,

The latest JIRA upgrade has completely removed support for the "grant
license to apache" radio button when attaching patches, and there are
no plans to support it in the future apparently either.  As such,
we're going to need a new procedure for signaling when this license is
granted, and write it up in our materials.

The infrastructure team renamed all existing files with the grant to
have a prefix: "ASF.LICENSE.GRANTED--".  We could require the same
thing going forward.  Or, we could require patches to be attached with
"Apache license granted" to be included in the comment text.  What do
you think?

Karl

Re: Attaching patch procedure has changed

[Jukka Zitting <ju...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Karl Wright <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the case of an attached patch, I grant you that the implication is
> fairly clear.

Indeed. If someone sends a patch to us and doesn't claim otherwise,
it's safe to assume that it was meant for inclusion. Otherwise they'd
simply not have sent the patch in the first place.

> But should a contributor argue at a later time that
> they did not actually intend to contribute the attachment to the ASF,
> here in the U.S. s/he would probably prevail because in no place did
> we inform the user that an attachment was a contribution under the
> ASL, nor did we have them perform an action requiring acknowledgement
> of the contribution.

If a case like that occurs, we just remove the code in question from svn.

For larger contributions (bigger than just a normal patch) it's a good
idea to ask the contributor to explicitly state their intent or even
to submit a CLA or a software grant, but for normal patches the
overhead is IMHO not worth the trouble compared to the ease of
reverting or rewriting the commits if a contributor ever has a change
of heart.

BR,

Jukka Zitting

Re: Attaching patch procedure has changed

[Karl Wright <da...@gmail.com>]

Hi Jukka,

The text in question states, in part, "any Contribution intentionally
submitted for inclusion in the Work by You to the Licensor".  The
problem though, as you note, is determining the intent of a file
attachment, especially since nowhere does it say in JIRA that such
attachments are automatically covered by ASL v 2.

In the case of an attached patch, I grant you that the implication is
fairly clear.  But should a contributor argue at a later time that
they did not actually intend to contribute the attachment to the ASF,
here in the U.S. s/he would probably prevail because in no place did
we inform the user that an attachment was a contribution under the
ASL, nor did we have them perform an action requiring acknowledgement
of the contribution.

Thanks,
Karl


On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:13 AM, Jukka Zitting <ju...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:45 AM, Karl Wright <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The infrastructure team renamed all existing files with the grant to
>> have a prefix: "ASF.LICENSE.GRANTED--".  We could require the same
>> thing going forward.  Or, we could require patches to be attached with
>> "Apache license granted" to be included in the comment text.  What do
>> you think?
>
> Section 5 of ALv2 [1] already covers the licensing of intentionally
> submitted contributions, so there's no special need for such extra
> markers. When there's doubt about the intention of the submitter, we
> can always ask for a clarification.
>
> [1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
>
> BR,
>
> Jukka Zitting

Re: Attaching patch procedure has changed

[Jukka Zitting <ju...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 8:45 AM, Karl Wright <da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The infrastructure team renamed all existing files with the grant to
> have a prefix: "ASF.LICENSE.GRANTED--".  We could require the same
> thing going forward.  Or, we could require patches to be attached with
> "Apache license granted" to be included in the comment text.  What do
> you think?

Section 5 of ALv2 [1] already covers the licensing of intentionally
submitted contributions, so there's no special need for such extra
markers. When there's doubt about the intention of the submitter, we
can always ask for a clarification.

[1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

BR,

Jukka Zitting