"Software" grant of license for documentation

[Hen <ba...@apache.org>]

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-486 is a question regarding the
contribution of documentation from a book author. My gut is that we should
get a license from the author and/or their publisher.

The obvious grant of license to use is the software-grant.txt, but that
focuses a lot on 'Software' (read 'software source code and related IP').

Should we create a new version of that file that is generic as to the work
being contributed?

While we're at it, I'd love to stop calling it a 'grant', as that tends to
be assumed to mean grant of ownership and not a grant of license.
"Single-Contribution-License-Agreement" perhaps.

Hen

Re: "Software" grant of license for documentation

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

> On Oct 25, 2019, at 9:31 AM, Justin Mclean <ju...@me.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Couldn’t that been seen as promotion of a commercial book? That seems to me like something we wouldn’t want to do in official ASF documentation.

Even if having a chapter of documentation is seen as promotion, there is no real
justification for prohibiting any form of promotion. We could even sell the book
from our site if doing so is consistent with our mission (i.e., Apache got enough
of a cut to justify the cost of doing so or it promotes use of our product). See PBS.
We used to have a page on httpd that listed commercial books about the server.

Would we want to include that in our "official" documentation? That's something the
project can decide for themselves.  It is legal if we have a license. It is okay policy if
it doesn't prevent further development of our docs under the Apache License.
This is not a legal issue (though reviewing the license would be).

....Roy



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Re: "Software" grant of license for documentation

[Justin Mclean <ju...@me.com>]

Hi,

Couldn’t that been seen as promotion of a commercial book? That seems to me like something we wouldn’t want to do in official ASF documentation.

Thanks,
Justin


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Re: "Software" grant of license for documentation

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

> On Oct 24, 2019, at 9:56 PM, Hen <ba...@apache.org> wrote:
> 
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-486 <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-486> is a question regarding the contribution of documentation from a book author. My gut is that we should get a license from the author and/or their publisher. 
> 
> The obvious grant of license to use is the software-grant.txt, but that focuses a lot on 'Software' (read 'software source code and related IP'). 

It is very unlikely that the publisher wants to give us a license to change the work.
I suggest they be asked first.  More likely, they just want to publish a free chapter
on our website that retains links to the full book, which I don't have a problem with
but others might.  In that case, all we need is a simple license to do that.

If it is a normal contribution with right to make derivative works, then accept it with
a normal CCLA and be done.

> Should we create a new version of that file that is generic as to the work being contributed?
> 
> While we're at it, I'd love to stop calling it a 'grant', as that tends to be assumed to mean grant of ownership and not a grant of license. "Single-Contribution-License-Agreement" perhaps.

No opinion. The software grant was only intended for software grants (big code drops).
The CCLA works for anything, assuming a contribution is what they actually want to make.

....Roy