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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by Bruno Harbulot <Br...@manchester.ac.uk> on 2010/05/19 00:51:20 UTC
Maven, redistribution and licenses
Hello,
I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this topic since it's
probably not the ASF's problem strictly speaking, but since Maven is an
Apache project, I would appreciate some informal advice from people with
more legal expertise than me on a discussion I started on the Maven
Users list:
http://markmail.org/message/ny42hzbebnh2befb
The facts on which I'm basing my reasoning are that, in my opinion:
- Hosting software on http://repo2.maven.org/maven2/ (for example) is a
form of redistribution and falls under the notions of "redistribution"
and "conveying" common to a number of OSS licences (Apache, GPL, LGPL,
BSD, MIT at least).
- A publisher's omission to include a licence doesn't grant whoever gets
hold of that software a licence to redistribute it unconditionally.
Could anyone comment on whether these two points are correct (I suppose
it might depend on the territoriality too)?
To put this in context, I'm trying to argue that Maven should do a bit
more to help respect the licences and that the central repository
currently doesn't in a number of cases, since a number of jars don't
have any licence information in them or associated with them.
(I'm not trying to have a legal battle, but I'm making suggestions to
improve the system.)
Best wishes,
Bruno.
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Re: Maven, redistribution and licenses
Posted by Bruno Harbulot <Br...@manchester.ac.uk>.
Thanks for your reply, valid points indeed.
It seems from the latest messages on the original thread that the Maven
team is in fact aware of those issue and is working towards their
resolution by improving the mechanisms.
This is definitely positive. I think the of the problems (for which I
started the thread there) were due to the fact we're in the transition
period and not all the documentation that can be found at various places
is up to date.
Best wishes,
Bruno.
On 19/05/2010 01:29, Henri Yandell wrote:
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Bruno Harbulot
> <Br...@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this topic since it's
>> probably not the ASF's problem strictly speaking, but since Maven is an
>> Apache project, I would appreciate some informal advice from people with
>> more legal expertise than me on a discussion I started on the Maven Users
>> list:
>> http://markmail.org/message/ny42hzbebnh2befb
>
> Yep, the repository is definitely not owned by the ASF.
>
>> The facts on which I'm basing my reasoning are that, in my opinion:
>>
>> - Hosting software on http://repo2.maven.org/maven2/ (for example) is a form
>> of redistribution and falls under the notions of "redistribution" and
>> "conveying" common to a number of OSS licences (Apache, GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT
>> at least).
>
> Sounds like a sane piece of reasoning.
>
> An open question would be who is doing the distributing - are they
> being akin to an ISP or are they the primary distributor.
>
>> - A publisher's omission to include a licence doesn't grant whoever gets
>> hold of that software a licence to redistribute it unconditionally.
>
> I think this is a bit fluffier. I would think that it doesn't grant,
> but it equally doesn't indicate it's not granted.
>
>> Could anyone comment on whether these two points are correct (I suppose it
>> might depend on the territoriality too)?
>>
>>
>> To put this in context, I'm trying to argue that Maven should do a bit more
>> to help respect the licences and that the central repository currently
>> doesn't in a number of cases, since a number of jars don't have any licence
>> information in them or associated with them.
>> (I'm not trying to have a legal battle, but I'm making suggestions to
>> improve the system.)
>
> I would expect the owners of the repository to basically say:
>
> * If anyone is distributing artifacts through the repositories that
> they/we don't have the right to distribute; we will remove it. That's
> definitely happened in the past and I think was a major player in
> getting Sun to stop releasing standard APIs under ugly non-friendly
> licenses.
> * Improving the mechanisms for license management is a great thing.
>
> Hen
>
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Re: Maven, redistribution and licenses
Posted by Henri Yandell <ba...@apache.org>.
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Bruno Harbulot
<Br...@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this topic since it's
> probably not the ASF's problem strictly speaking, but since Maven is an
> Apache project, I would appreciate some informal advice from people with
> more legal expertise than me on a discussion I started on the Maven Users
> list:
> http://markmail.org/message/ny42hzbebnh2befb
Yep, the repository is definitely not owned by the ASF.
> The facts on which I'm basing my reasoning are that, in my opinion:
>
> - Hosting software on http://repo2.maven.org/maven2/ (for example) is a form
> of redistribution and falls under the notions of "redistribution" and
> "conveying" common to a number of OSS licences (Apache, GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT
> at least).
Sounds like a sane piece of reasoning.
An open question would be who is doing the distributing - are they
being akin to an ISP or are they the primary distributor.
> - A publisher's omission to include a licence doesn't grant whoever gets
> hold of that software a licence to redistribute it unconditionally.
I think this is a bit fluffier. I would think that it doesn't grant,
but it equally doesn't indicate it's not granted.
> Could anyone comment on whether these two points are correct (I suppose it
> might depend on the territoriality too)?
>
>
> To put this in context, I'm trying to argue that Maven should do a bit more
> to help respect the licences and that the central repository currently
> doesn't in a number of cases, since a number of jars don't have any licence
> information in them or associated with them.
> (I'm not trying to have a legal battle, but I'm making suggestions to
> improve the system.)
I would expect the owners of the repository to basically say:
* If anyone is distributing artifacts through the repositories that
they/we don't have the right to distribute; we will remove it. That's
definitely happened in the past and I think was a major player in
getting Sun to stop releasing standard APIs under ugly non-friendly
licenses.
* Improving the mechanisms for license management is a great thing.
Hen
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