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Posted to community@apache.org by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org> on 2004/02/24 15:21:44 UTC
Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Hi all,
I found out that my county is publicly distributing tax software which
includes ASF software (FOP, xalan, xerces, logj4) but without including
the required license. See http://www.vaudtax.vd.ch/ (but it's all in
french obviously). As it's tax time around here, they already have
distributed many copies.
I have contacted them informally about it and promptly got a call from
the company who developed the software, the person with whom I talked
says they recognize the problem and are willing to include the license
in new releases of their software (notice in the about box +
license.txt along the installed jar files).
I cannot speak for the ASF on legal matters, but personally I don't
think legal action is appropriate as they have immediately reacted in
the right way, so in my view a "fair compensation" in terms of fixing
the problem + public notices would be ok.
In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software,
my suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the main
web page where the software is found, with a link to a page that
explains the situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
WDYT?
--
Bertrand Delacretaz
independent consultant, Lausanne, Switzerland
http://cvs.apache.org/~bdelacretaz/
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@asemantics.com>.
On Feb 24, 2004, at 3:21 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> I cannot speak for the ASF on legal matters, but personally I don't
> think legal action is appropriate as they have immediately reacted in
> the right way, so in my view a "fair compensation" in terms of fixing
> the problem + public notices would be ok.
Resolving these things in a friendly fashion is always best -
especially when there is no intentional violation and little
or no harm is done.
If you need a formal hand - just ask - but in general what we do in
these cases is to write a gentle letter; get a dialoge going, point out
the license and then help the other party to come into compliance. The
key aspect of this is helping and educating.
> In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software,
> my suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the
> main web page where the software is found, with a link to a page that
> explains the situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
That would be a nice thing to do - and if they feel really really
guilty - we are always open for donations, patches, bugfixes or some
lovely french translations of doc's - but first I would focus on
ensuring that going forward the issue is resolved; the last thing we
want is getting bug-reports about *their* app from the tax-payers of
CH in our bug tracker :-) due to such a link.
Dw
--
Dirk-WIllem van Gulik, President of the ASF.
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@asemantics.com>.
On 25/02/2004, at 11:29 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
>>
>> What... you want to grind their noses into it?
Not in the least !
> Not at all - I thought about a notice as some fair enough free
> publicity for the ASF and as education (as Dirk-Willem mentions).
> There's a lot of talk and misconceptions in the press about open
> source around here these days, so public ways of raising awareness
> about what the ASF is doing are good IMHO.
>
Having some sort of visibility of
-> that open source is used.
-> licenses are policed
is incredibly positive for open source in general and for us in
particular. Esp. when it is near
tax systems or other govt. infrastructure Lets not forget that until
recently in most countries
it was virtually impossible to use any open source for Govt. project. A
lot of EU govts. followed
an EC directive which simply forbade the use of Open Source or free
variant if a viable
proprietary/commercial alternative was available.
Dw
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by jean-frederic clere <jf...@fujitsu-siemens.com>.
Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
>
> Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:10 Europe/Zurich, Greg Stein a écrit :
>
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 08:53:02AM +0100, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
>>
>>> ...
>>> You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
>>> on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
>>> without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
>>> release?
>>
>>
>> What... you want to grind their noses into it?
>
>
> Not at all - I thought about a notice as some fair enough free publicity
> for the ASF and as education (as Dirk-Willem mentions). There's a lot of
> talk and misconceptions in the press about open source around here these
> days, so public ways of raising awareness about what the ASF is doing
> are good IMHO.
Look to their page: http://www.vaudtax.vd.ch/liens.html I neary sure they will
be happy to add a link to ASF.
>
>> It was a simple oversight.
>> They've agreed to correct it. Move along...
>
>
> Ok, let's solve this in a simple (yet educational ;-) way.
>
> -Bertrand
>
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>
>
Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:10 Europe/Zurich, Greg Stein a écrit :
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 08:53:02AM +0100, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
>> ...
>> You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
>> on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
>> without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
>> release?
>
> What... you want to grind their noses into it?
Not at all - I thought about a notice as some fair enough free
publicity for the ASF and as education (as Dirk-Willem mentions).
There's a lot of talk and misconceptions in the press about open source
around here these days, so public ways of raising awareness about what
the ASF is doing are good IMHO.
> It was a simple oversight.
> They've agreed to correct it. Move along...
Ok, let's solve this in a simple (yet educational ;-) way.
-Bertrand
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 08:53:02AM +0100, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
>...
> You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
> on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
> without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
> release?
What... you want to grind their noses into it? It was a simple oversight.
They've agreed to correct it. Move along...
-g
--
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 04:51:50AM -0600, Antonio Gallardo wrote:
>...
> Just to make things clear to me: The notice in the about box is OBLIGATORY
> with ASL 1.1? What about ASL 2.0?
Section 4 of AL 2.0 describes the new requirements, and 4d specifically
notes that the same kind of acknowledgement must occur.
Cheers,
-g
p.s. it is the Apache License (AL), rather than Apache Software License (ASL)
--
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <an...@apache.org>.
Bertrand Delacretaz dijo:
> Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:24 Europe/Zurich, Dirk-Willem van Gulik
> a écrit :
>
>> ...If a _letter_ needs to be written; the foundation needs to
>> ultimately send it. But it seems from your
>> description that this may get solved without one...
>
> Certainly, so if you're ok I'll just send to them an email in French
> stating that:
>
> -The ASF asks them to include the appropriate license.txt file along
> with the redistributed jars in future releases, and a notice in the
> about box, "contains software copyrighted by the Apache Software
> Foundation".
>
> -We would appreciate a notice on the website where the software is
> distributed, something like "Our software includes software components
> copyrighted by the Apache Software Foundation, but we omitted to
> include the required license. This will be corrected in future
> releases".
>
> How does this sound?
Sounds good to me.
Just to make things clear to me: The notice in the about box is OBLIGATORY
with ASL 1.1? What about ASL 2.0?
The question is because I am also developing a gov. app and don't want to
have problems with the ASF ;-)
Anyway we already included this info in the about page of the app, but I
want to have this clear, when someone else will ask me this.
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org>.
On 25/02/2004, at 8:53 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Would the foundation write such a letter, or do you want me to do it?
> If so I'd post the key points here before writing.
If a _letter_ needs to be written; the foundation needs to ultimately
send it. But it seems from your
description that this may get solved without one.
> You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
> on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
> without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
> release?
Sounds good.
> I'd also add a note about contributions and bug fixes in the letter,
> bug this goes more for the company who developed the software than for
> the county who's only distributing it.
Just drop me a draft - private mail fine - and we'll take it from there.
Dw
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:41 Europe/Zurich, Dirk-Willem van Gulik
a écrit :
> ...I'd say something - "you may consider a notice" until you've
> started to do a new release or something...
ok - I'll do so and put you in CC.
Thanks for you help!
-Bertrand
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@asemantics.com>.
On 25/02/2004, at 11:37 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:24 Europe/Zurich, Dirk-Willem van Gulik
> a écrit :
>
>> ...If a _letter_ needs to be written; the foundation needs to
>> ultimately send it. But it seems from your
>> description that this may get solved without one...
>
> Certainly, so if you're ok I'll just send to them an email in French
> stating that:
>
> -The ASF asks them to include the appropriate license.txt file along
> with the redistributed jars in future releases, and a notice in the
> about box, "contains software copyrighted by the Apache Software
> Foundation".
Splendid.
>
> -We would appreciate a notice on the website where the software is
> distributed, something like "Our software includes software components
> copyrighted by the Apache Software Foundation, but we omitted to
> include the required license. This will be corrected in future
> releases".
>
I'd say something - "you may consider a notice" until you've started to
do a new release or something.
Dw
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Le Mercredi, 25 fév 2004, à 11:24 Europe/Zurich, Dirk-Willem van Gulik
a écrit :
> ...If a _letter_ needs to be written; the foundation needs to
> ultimately send it. But it seems from your
> description that this may get solved without one...
Certainly, so if you're ok I'll just send to them an email in French
stating that:
-The ASF asks them to include the appropriate license.txt file along
with the redistributed jars in future releases, and a notice in the
about box, "contains software copyrighted by the Apache Software
Foundation".
-We would appreciate a notice on the website where the software is
distributed, something like "Our software includes software components
copyrighted by the Apache Software Foundation, but we omitted to
include the required license. This will be corrected in future
releases".
How does this sound?
-Bertrand
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@asemantics.com>.
On 25/02/2004, at 8:53 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> Would the foundation write such a letter, or do you want me to do it?
> If so I'd post the key points here before writing.
If a _letter_ needs to be written; the foundation needs to ultimately
send it. But it seems from your
description that this may get solved without one.
> You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
> on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
> without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
> release?
Sounds good.
> I'd also add a note about contributions and bug fixes in the letter,
> bug this goes more for the company who developed the software than for
> the county who's only distributing it.
Just drop me a draft - private mail fine - and we'll take it from there.
Dw
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@codeconsult.ch>.
Le Mardi, 24 fév 2004, à 16:54 Europe/Zurich, Dirk-Willem van Gulik a
écrit :
> ...If you need a formal hand - just ask - but in general what we do in
> these cases is to write a gentle letter; get a dialoge going, point
> out the license and then help the other party to come into compliance.
> The key aspect of this is helping and educating...
Certainly. The dialogue is going, with a friendly phone call with
someone from the company who wrote the software. Totally ok about
educating.
Would the foundation write such a letter, or do you want me to do it?
If so I'd post the key points here before writing.
>
>> In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software,
>> my suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the
>> main web page where the software is found, with a link to a page that
>> explains the situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
>
> That would be a nice thing to do - and if they feel really really
> guilty - we are always open for donations, patches, bugfixes or some
> lovely french translations of doc's - but first I would focus on
> ensuring that going forward the issue is resolved; the last thing we
> want is getting bug-reports about *their* app from the tax-payers of
> CH in our bug tracker :-) due to such a link...
You're right about the link, so maybe we should just ask for a notice
on their website indicating that ASF software has been redistributed
without the required licences, and that this will be fixed in the next
release?
I'd also add a note about contributions and bug fixes in the letter,
bug this goes more for the company who developed the software than for
the county who's only distributing it.
-Bertrand
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org>.
On Feb 24, 2004, at 3:21 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz wrote:
> I cannot speak for the ASF on legal matters, but personally I don't
> think legal action is appropriate as they have immediately reacted in
> the right way, so in my view a "fair compensation" in terms of fixing
> the problem + public notices would be ok.
Resolving these things in a friendly fashion is always best -
especially when there is no intentional violation and little
or no harm is done.
If you need a formal hand - just ask - but in general what we do in
these cases is to write a gentle letter; get a dialoge going, point out
the license and then help the other party to come into compliance. The
key aspect of this is helping and educating.
> In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software,
> my suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the
> main web page where the software is found, with a link to a page that
> explains the situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
That would be a nice thing to do - and if they feel really really
guilty - we are always open for donations, patches, bugfixes or some
lovely french translations of doc's - but first I would focus on
ensuring that going forward the issue is resolved; the last thing we
want is getting bug-reports about *their* app from the tax-payers of
CH in our bug tracker :-) due to such a link.
Dw
--
Dirk-WIllem van Gulik, President of the ASF.
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@greenmail.ch>.
Damn, we've got different software here in the Canton of Lucerne. ;-)
On 24.02.2004 16:22:07 Ceki Gülcü wrote:
>
> Living in Lausanne in the Canton of Vaud, I demand to be exempted from
> paying taxes until they fix the problem. That is the least they could do. :-)
>
> At 03:21 PM 2/24/2004 +0100, you wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I found out that my county is publicly distributing tax software which
> >includes ASF software (FOP, xalan, xerces, logj4) but without including
> >the required license. See http://www.vaudtax.vd.ch/ (but it's all in
> >french obviously). As it's tax time around here, they already have
> >distributed many copies.
> >
> >I have contacted them informally about it and promptly got a call from the
> >company who developed the software, the person with whom I talked says
> >they recognize the problem and are willing to include the license in new
> >releases of their software (notice in the about box + license.txt along
> >the installed jar files).
> >
> >I cannot speak for the ASF on legal matters, but personally I don't think
> >legal action is appropriate as they have immediately reacted in the right
> >way, so in my view a "fair compensation" in terms of fixing the problem +
> >public notices would be ok.
> >
> >In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software, my
> >suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the main web
> >page where the software is found, with a link to a page that explains the
> >situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
> >
> >WDYT?
Jeremias Maerki
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Re: Violation of ASF license, how to resolve?
Posted by Ceki Gülcü <ce...@qos.ch>.
Living in Lausanne in the Canton of Vaud, I demand to be exempted from
paying taxes until they fix the problem. That is the least they could do. :-)
At 03:21 PM 2/24/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I found out that my county is publicly distributing tax software which
>includes ASF software (FOP, xalan, xerces, logj4) but without including
>the required license. See http://www.vaudtax.vd.ch/ (but it's all in
>french obviously). As it's tax time around here, they already have
>distributed many copies.
>
>I have contacted them informally about it and promptly got a call from the
>company who developed the software, the person with whom I talked says
>they recognize the problem and are willing to include the license in new
>releases of their software (notice in the about box + license.txt along
>the installed jar files).
>
>I cannot speak for the ASF on legal matters, but personally I don't think
>legal action is appropriate as they have immediately reacted in the right
>way, so in my view a "fair compensation" in terms of fixing the problem +
>public notices would be ok.
>
>In addition to fixing the problem in a new release of their software, my
>suggestion would be for them to include a visible notice on the main web
>page where the software is found, with a link to a page that explains the
>situation (and apologies to the ASF?).
>
>WDYT?
>
>--
> Bertrand Delacretaz
> independent consultant, Lausanne, Switzerland
> http://cvs.apache.org/~bdelacretaz/
--
Ceki Gülcü
For log4j documentation consider "The complete log4j manual"
ISBN: 2970036908 http://www.qos.ch/shop/products/clm_t.jsp
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