Please review this ASL2 overview

[Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>]

I have just started new employment at OSS Watch at Oxford University. 
One of the resources I found here (actually David Crossley found it 
before me, thanks for the heads-up David) is "The Apache License (v2) - 
An Overview" [1]

This is not a very accurate document as David points out. Clearly I will 
get this updated ASAP. in order to do so I would like to rewrite this 
document with the observations from the ASL experts on this list. So 
anyone who wishes to comment on its content and/or provide suggestions 
for more accurate wording please go ahead.

Ross

[1] http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/apache2.xml

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Re: Please review this ASL2 overview

["Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com>]

On Jan 16, 2007, at 3:20 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:

> I have just started new employment at OSS Watch at Oxford  
> University. One of the resources I found here (actually David  
> Crossley found it before me, thanks for the heads-up David) is "The  
> Apache License (v2) - An Overview" [1]
>
> This is not a very accurate document as David points out. Clearly I  
> will get this updated ASAP. in order to do so I would like to  
> rewrite this document with the observations from the ASL experts on  
> this list. So anyone who wishes to comment on its content and/or  
> provide suggestions for more accurate wording please go ahead.
>
> Ross
>
> [1] http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/apache2.xml

It really isn't accurate at all.  As a quick fly through, here are
some comments.

Apache revised its license to 1.1 before the new BSD license came out.
The FSF never considered the Apache License to be "compatible" (any
version -- they kept coming up with new excuses each time it was  
revised).
Apache was constrained by the dependent software that required  
attribution,
so we had to find a way to accomplish attribution regardless of the
FSF's opinions.

The Contributor bits are not about "donates the copyright in their
modification".  It is about assuring that the recipient has a license
to redistribute from the Contributor.

There is no "commonly accepted view" of incompatibility.  There is the
FSF's view and the ASF's view, and they are effectively the same until
someone sues for patent infringement on an implementation for which
the patent is only licensed when distributed under the GPL.  Nobody
else cares.

....Roy

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