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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fp...@apache.org> on 2017/05/06 21:02:37 UTC
Apache License question
Hi there,
This is not a question about an Apache project, but instead about a project
that we want to open source under the Apache license. The lawyers reviewing
the project code for some reason do not like the wording of the second
paragraph of the license header that the Apache license recommends projects
to use:
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.
They claim that the wording isn’t legally sound. I don’t understand how
this is possible given that this text exists verbatim in paragraph 7 of the
license, but they seem to be uncomfortable with it given that paragraph 7
of the license does say more.
My question however is whether I can use only this text as the license
header:
Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
Licensed 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
without a problem or whether that would violate the license terms in any
way. As part of the question, assuming this change is acceptable, I’d need
to understand whether changing the Appendix of the license file is
acceptable, given that it is after the end of terms and conditions.
I have searched the mail archives, but couldn’t really find anything that
addresses this. Any feedback here would be highly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Flavio
Re: Apache License question
Posted by Craig Russell <ap...@gmail.com>.
Hi,
The purpose of the license header is to alert users that the code is licensed under the Apache license and to refer them to the complete license. The license header is specifically intended not to conflict with the license, but to contain enough of a description that it's easy to tell that this is a work licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.
You might not have seen this:
http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html#is-a-short-form-of-the-source-header-available <http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html#is-a-short-form-of-the-source-header-available>
So even Apache projects are allowed to use a shortened form of the license header. Your example below has more information than this short form.
This is not legal advice but the header is not a license. It's just a brief summary of the license.
Craig
> On May 9, 2017, at 3:59 PM, Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fp...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> I'm sending the question in the case anyone has a chance to respond this time around. I'd appreciate any feedback here.
>
> Thank you,
> -Flavio
>
> On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fpj@apache.org <ma...@apache.org>> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> This is not a question about an Apache project, but instead about a project that we want to open source under the Apache license. The lawyers reviewing the project code for some reason do not like the wording of the second paragraph of the license header that the Apache license recommends projects to use:
>
> 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.
>
>
> They claim that the wording isn’t legally sound. I don’t understand how this is possible given that this text exists verbatim in paragraph 7 of the license, but they seem to be uncomfortable with it given that paragraph 7 of the license does say more.
>
> My question however is whether I can use only this text as the license header:
>
> Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
>
> Licensed 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 <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>
>
>
> without a problem or whether that would violate the license terms in any way. As part of the question, assuming this change is acceptable, I’d need to understand whether changing the Appendix of the license file is acceptable, given that it is after the end of terms and conditions.
>
> I have searched the mail archives, but couldn’t really find anything that addresses this. Any feedback here would be highly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> -Flavio
>
Craig L Russell
Secretary, Apache Software Foundation
clr@apache.org <ma...@apache.org> http://db.apache.org/jdo <http://db.apache.org/jdo>
Re: Apache License question
Posted by Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fp...@apache.org>.
I'm sending the question in the case anyone has a chance to respond this
time around. I'd appreciate any feedback here.
Thank you,
-Flavio
On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 2:02 PM, Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fp...@apache.org> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> This is not a question about an Apache project, but instead about a
> project that we want to open source under the Apache license. The lawyers
> reviewing the project code for some reason do not like the wording of the
> second paragraph of the license header that the Apache license recommends
> projects to use:
>
> 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.
>
>
> They claim that the wording isn’t legally sound. I don’t understand how
> this is possible given that this text exists verbatim in paragraph 7 of the
> license, but they seem to be uncomfortable with it given that paragraph 7
> of the license does say more.
>
> My question however is whether I can use only this text as the license
> header:
>
> Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
>
> Licensed 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
>
>
> without a problem or whether that would violate the license terms in any
> way. As part of the question, assuming this change is acceptable, I’d need
> to understand whether changing the Appendix of the license file is
> acceptable, given that it is after the end of terms and conditions.
>
> I have searched the mail archives, but couldn’t really find anything that
> addresses this. Any feedback here would be highly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> -Flavio
>
Re: Apache License question
Posted by Craig Russell <ap...@gmail.com>.
Hi,
The purpose of the license header is to alert users that the code is licensed under the Apache license and to refer them to the complete license. The license header is specifically intended not to conflict with the license, but to contain enough of a description that it's easy to tell that this is a work licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.
You might not have seen this:
http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html#is-a-short-form-of-the-source-header-available <http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html#is-a-short-form-of-the-source-header-available>
So even Apache projects are allowed to use a shortened form of the license header. Your example below has more information than this short form.
This is not legal advice but the header is not a license. It's just a brief summary of the license.
Craig
> On May 6, 2017, at 2:02 PM, Flavio P JUNQUEIRA <fp...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> This is not a question about an Apache project, but instead about a project that we want to open source under the Apache license. The lawyers reviewing the project code for some reason do not like the wording of the second paragraph of the license header that the Apache license recommends projects to use:
>
> 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.
>
>
> They claim that the wording isn’t legally sound. I don’t understand how this is possible given that this text exists verbatim in paragraph 7 of the license, but they seem to be uncomfortable with it given that paragraph 7 of the license does say more.
>
> My question however is whether I can use only this text as the license header:
>
> Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
>
> Licensed 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 <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>
>
>
> without a problem or whether that would violate the license terms in any way. As part of the question, assuming this change is acceptable, I’d need to understand whether changing the Appendix of the license file is acceptable, given that it is after the end of terms and conditions.
>
> I have searched the mail archives, but couldn’t really find anything that addresses this. Any feedback here would be highly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> -Flavio
Craig L Russell
clr@apache.org