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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org> on 2013/01/17 18:49:27 UTC
Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
The SGA contains the following:
"Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
Your Contributions and such derivative works."
and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation", even
if said code is in an unreleased branch?
Thanks,
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>.
Ah, okay.
I am reasonably sure Red Hat would be willing to provide public copies
of any SGAs it has signed with the ASF.
- RF
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:49:30AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> ICLA data is published in several
> places, that's been a settled matter
> for many years now. SGA data remains
> a bit of a black box still.
>
>
>
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> From: Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>
> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> Cc: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>;
> Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:46 PM
> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> > We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
> > if we are being stewards for public
> > rights: those records are all kept relatively
> > confidential in a private repo. I'm
> > sure reasonable requests for a particular
> > SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
> > anyone ever asking us for that.
>
> This is actually an interesting point. The ASF places a fair amount of
> emphasis on its rigorous IP intake procedures (or see it seems to me)
> as a 'selling point' for ASF projects, but doesn't having
> non-disclosued SGA grants (and CLAs -- I assume records of who has
> signed a CLA are confidential?) conflict with that? We (the public)
> never see proof of the 'chain of title' that the ASF is claiming as
> one of its beneficial characteristics.
>
> - RF
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> > From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
> > To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> > Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf
> > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
> > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Sorry I should have looked at the actual
> > > terms before commenting... yes it's clear
> > > you are granting the public rights as well
> > > under the SGA, and because it's discussing
> > > distributions that includes version control,
> > > not simply vetted releases.
> > >
> > > I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
> > > where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
> > > in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
> > > The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
> > > Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
> > > eventually we will ask some committer to change the
> > > license on the GPL'd code anyway.
> > >
> >
> > One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
> > necessarily the same.
> >
> > For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
> > included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
> > made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
> > it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
> > the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
> > and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
> > found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
> > Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
> >
> > That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
> > Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
> > no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
> > an approved Release.
> >
> > -Rob
> >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
> > > To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> > > Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel
> Shahaf
> > > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> > > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
> > >
> > > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> > >> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
> > >> you and the general public. All we are doing
> > >> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
> > >> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
> > >
> > > Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
> > >
> > > "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
> > > distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
> > > no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
> > > prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
> > > sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
> > > works."
> > >
> > > To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in
> addition
> > > to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
> > > Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
> > > obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that
> that's
> > > the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
> > > exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the
> case
> > > unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
> > > license?
> > >
> > > --
> > > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
Yes it's all member-visible data- sometimes
we need to look at it when seeing what work
an incubating project needs to do to clean
up its files, because occasionally those grants
list exceptions for certain items in the
initial checkin that the project needs to
deal with.
>________________________________
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>To: legal-discuss@apache.org
>Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 4:50 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ICLA data is published in several
>> places, that's been a settled matter
>> for many years now. SGA data remains
>> a bit of a black box still.
>>
>
>Do all Apache Members have direct access to the SGA's? If so, that
>provides an additional level of oversight. Sure, there will be always
>be the paranoid ones who will doubt whether there really was an SGA,
>or for that matter anyone's iCLA. And some continue to question
>Obama's birth certificate. But you need to draw the line somewhere.
>
>IMHO, the relevant facts of the SGA (what files are covered) is more
>important than putting a microscope over corporate letterheads and
>attorney signatures. And both with the Oracle and the IBM SGA's this
>information was made public in SVN.
>
>-Rob
>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>
>>
>> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>;
>> Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:46 PM
>>
>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>> We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
>>> if we are being stewards for public
>>> rights: those records are all kept relatively
>>> confidential in a private repo. I'm
>>> sure reasonable requests for a particular
>>> SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
>>> anyone ever asking us for that.
>>
>> This is actually an interesting point. The ASF places a fair amount of
>> emphasis on its rigorous IP intake procedures (or see it seems to me)
>> as a 'selling point' for ASF projects, but doesn't having
>> non-disclosued SGA grants (and CLAs -- I assume records of who has
>> signed a CLA are confidential?) conflict with that? We (the public)
>> never see proof of the 'chain of title' that the ASF is claiming as
>> one of its beneficial characteristics.
>>
>> - RF
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>>> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>>> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>>> Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf
>>> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Sorry I should have looked at the actual
>>> > terms before commenting... yes it's clear
>>> > you are granting the public rights as well
>>> > under the SGA, and because it's discussing
>>> > distributions that includes version control,
>>> > not simply vetted releases.
>>> >
>>> > I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
>>> > where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
>>> > in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
>>> > The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
>>> > Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
>>> > eventually we will ask some committer to change the
>>> > license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>>> >
>>>
>>> One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
>>> necessarily the same.
>>>
>>> For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
>>> included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
>>> made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
>>> it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
>>> the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
>>> and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
>>> found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
>>> Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
>>>
>>> That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
>>> Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
>>> no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
>>> an approved Release.
>>>
>>> -Rob
>>>
>>> >
>>> > ________________________________
>>> > From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>>> > To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>>> > Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel
>>> Shahaf
>>> > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>>> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>>> >
>>> > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>> >> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>>> >> you and the general public. All we are doing
>>> >> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>>> >> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>>> >
>>> > Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>>> >
>>> > "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>>> > distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>>> > no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>>> > prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>>> > sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>>> > works."
>>> >
>>> > To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in
>>> addition
>>> > to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
>>> > Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
>>> > obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that
>>> that's
>>> > the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
>>> > exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the
>>> case
>>> > unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
>>> > license?
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ICLA data is published in several
> places, that's been a settled matter
> for many years now. SGA data remains
> a bit of a black box still.
>
Do all Apache Members have direct access to the SGA's? If so, that
provides an additional level of oversight. Sure, there will be always
be the paranoid ones who will doubt whether there really was an SGA,
or for that matter anyone's iCLA. And some continue to question
Obama's birth certificate. But you need to draw the line somewhere.
IMHO, the relevant facts of the SGA (what files are covered) is more
important than putting a microscope over corporate letterheads and
attorney signatures. And both with the Oracle and the IBM SGA's this
information was made public in SVN.
-Rob
>
> ________________________________
> From: Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>
>
> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> Cc: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>;
> Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:46 PM
>
> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
>> if we are being stewards for public
>> rights: those records are all kept relatively
>> confidential in a private repo. I'm
>> sure reasonable requests for a particular
>> SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
>> anyone ever asking us for that.
>
> This is actually an interesting point. The ASF places a fair amount of
> emphasis on its rigorous IP intake procedures (or see it seems to me)
> as a 'selling point' for ASF projects, but doesn't having
> non-disclosued SGA grants (and CLAs -- I assume records of who has
> signed a CLA are confidential?) conflict with that? We (the public)
> never see proof of the 'chain of title' that the ASF is claiming as
> one of its beneficial characteristics.
>
> - RF
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf
>> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Sorry I should have looked at the actual
>> > terms before commenting... yes it's clear
>> > you are granting the public rights as well
>> > under the SGA, and because it's discussing
>> > distributions that includes version control,
>> > not simply vetted releases.
>> >
>> > I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
>> > where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
>> > in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
>> > The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
>> > Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
>> > eventually we will ask some committer to change the
>> > license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>> >
>>
>> One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
>> necessarily the same.
>>
>> For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
>> included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
>> made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
>> it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
>> the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
>> and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
>> found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
>> Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
>>
>> That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
>> Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
>> no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
>> an approved Release.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>> > To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> > Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel
>> Shahaf
>> > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>> >
>> > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> >> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>> >> you and the general public. All we are doing
>> >> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>> >> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>> >
>> > Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>> >
>> > "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>> > distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>> > no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>> > prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>> > sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>> > works."
>> >
>> > To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in
>> addition
>> > to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
>> > Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
>> > obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that
>> that's
>> > the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
>> > exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the
>> case
>> > unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
>> > license?
>> >
>> > --
>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
ICLA data is published in several
places, that's been a settled matter
for many years now. SGA data remains
a bit of a black box still.
>________________________________
> From: Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>
>To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:46 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
>> if we are being stewards for public
>> rights: those records are all kept relatively
>> confidential in a private repo. I'm
>> sure reasonable requests for a particular
>> SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
>> anyone ever asking us for that.
>
>This is actually an interesting point. The ASF places a fair amount of
>emphasis on its rigorous IP intake procedures (or see it seems to me)
>as a 'selling point' for ASF projects, but doesn't having
>non-disclosued SGA grants (and CLAs -- I assume records of who has
>signed a CLA are confidential?) conflict with that? We (the public)
>never see proof of the 'chain of title' that the ASF is claiming as
>one of its beneficial characteristics.
>
>- RF
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf
>> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Sorry I should have looked at the actual
>> > terms before commenting... yes it's clear
>> > you are granting the public rights as well
>> > under the SGA, and because it's discussing
>> > distributions that includes version control,
>> > not simply vetted releases.
>> >
>> > I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
>> > where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
>> > in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
>> > The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
>> > Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
>> > eventually we will ask some committer to change the
>> > license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>> >
>>
>> One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
>> necessarily the same.
>>
>> For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
>> included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
>> made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
>> it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
>> the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
>> and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
>> found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
>> Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
>>
>> That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
>> Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
>> no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
>> an approved Release.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>> > To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> > Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf
>> > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>> >
>> > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> >> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>> >> you and the general public. All we are doing
>> >> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>> >> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>> >
>> > Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>> >
>> > "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>> > distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>> > no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>> > prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>> > sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>> > works."
>> >
>> > To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
>> > to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
>> > Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
>> > obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
>> > the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
>> > exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
>> > unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
>> > license?
>> >
>> > --
>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
> if we are being stewards for public
> rights: those records are all kept relatively
> confidential in a private repo. I'm
> sure reasonable requests for a particular
> SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
> anyone ever asking us for that.
This is actually an interesting point. The ASF places a fair amount of
emphasis on its rigorous IP intake procedures (or see it seems to me)
as a 'selling point' for ASF projects, but doesn't having
non-disclosued SGA grants (and CLAs -- I assume records of who has
signed a CLA are confidential?) conflict with that? We (the public)
never see proof of the 'chain of title' that the ASF is claiming as
one of its beneficial characteristics.
- RF
>
>
>
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
> To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf
> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Sorry I should have looked at the actual
> > terms before commenting... yes it's clear
> > you are granting the public rights as well
> > under the SGA, and because it's discussing
> > distributions that includes version control,
> > not simply vetted releases.
> >
> > I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
> > where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
> > in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
> > The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
> > Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
> > eventually we will ask some committer to change the
> > license on the GPL'd code anyway.
> >
>
> One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
> necessarily the same.
>
> For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
> included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
> made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
> it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
> the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
> and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
> found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
> Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
>
> That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
> Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
> no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
> an approved Release.
>
> -Rob
>
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
> > To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> > Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf
> > <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
> >
> > Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> >> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
> >> you and the general public. All we are doing
> >> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
> >> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
> >
> > Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
> >
> > "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
> > distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
> > no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
> > prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
> > sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
> > works."
> >
> > To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
> > to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
> > Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
> > obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
> > the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
> > exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
> > unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
> > license?
> >
> > --
> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
We certainly don't treat SGA grants as
if we are being stewards for public
rights: those records are all kept relatively
confidential in a private repo. I'm
sure reasonable requests for a particular
SGA would be granted, but I don't recall
anyone ever asking us for that.
>________________________________
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>To: legal-discuss@apache.org; Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>; Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:32 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Sorry I should have looked at the actual
>> terms before commenting... yes it's clear
>> you are granting the public rights as well
>> under the SGA, and because it's discussing
>> distributions that includes version control,
>> not simply vetted releases.
>>
>> I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
>> where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
>> in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
>> The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
>> Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
>> eventually we will ask some committer to change the
>> license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>>
>
>One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
>necessarily the same.
>
>For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
>included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
>made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
>it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
>the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
>and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
>found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
>Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
>
>That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
>Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
>no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
>an approved Release.
>
>-Rob
>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>> To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf
>> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>>
>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>>> you and the general public. All we are doing
>>> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>>> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>>
>> Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>>
>> "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>> distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>> no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>> prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>> sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>> works."
>>
>> To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
>> to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
>> Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
>> obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
>> the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
>> exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
>> unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
>> license?
>>
>> --
>> Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>>
>>
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sorry I should have looked at the actual
> terms before commenting... yes it's clear
> you are granting the public rights as well
> under the SGA, and because it's discussing
> distributions that includes version control,
> not simply vetted releases.
>
> I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
> where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
> in version control that you'd like to sublicense.
> The SGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
> Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
> eventually we will ask some committer to change the
> license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>
One further complexity. What is in SVN and what is in the SGA are not
necessarily the same.
For example, with Oracle's SGA for OpenOffice, the code checked in
included Oracle owned code, but also many 3rd party modules. The SGA
made it clear which subset of the files were covered by the SGA. But
it took the podling several months more to review the files, identify
the 3rd party ones, classify their licenses, and in many cases remove
and/or replace them with permissively licensed code. In some cases we
found that some needed files were missing and we had to go back to
Oracle to get a supplemental SGA.
That's the benefit of the effort we put into the Incubation/IP
Clearance procedures, as well as our per-Release IP reviews. There is
no shortcut to getting the kind of clarity and confidence one has with
an approved Release.
-Rob
>
> ________________________________
> From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
> To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
> Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf
> <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>
> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>> you and the general public. All we are doing
>> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>
> Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>
> "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
> distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
> no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
> prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
> sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
> works."
>
> To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
> to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
> Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
> obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
> the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
> exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
> unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
> license?
>
> --
> Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
Sorry I should have looked at the actual
terms before commenting... yes it's clear
you are granting the public rights as well
under the SGA, and because it's discussing
distributions that includes version control,
not simply vetted releases.
I'm not sure how you'd work out a situation
where we have some GPL-licensed SGA-gifted code
in versioncontrol that you'd like to sublicense.
TheSGA gives you that right, but the GPL doesn't.
Presumably the SGA trumps the GPL here because
eventually we will ask some committer to change the
license on the GPL'd code anyway.
>________________________________
> From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:11 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>> you and the general public. All we are doing
>> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>
>Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>
>"You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>works."
>
>To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
>to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
>Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
>obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
>the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
>exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
>unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
>license?
>
>--
>Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by "Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com>.
On Jan 17, 2013, at 11:28 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 07:11:23PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>>> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
>>> you and the general public. All we are doing
>>> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
>>> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>>
>> Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>>
>> "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
>> distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
>> no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
>> prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
>> sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
>> works."
>>
>> To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
>> to the rights granted to the Foundation.
>
> I read it the same way as Matthew. I cannot understand how the SGA, as
> quoted, is not a license to the general public once the Foundation has
> chosen to "distribute" the software in question to the general
> public. Even if the Foundation explicitly said "We are distributing
> this software to the general public, but you the general public have
> no right to distribute it further", I do not see how that cancels out
> the existing upstream broad copyright license granted under the SGA,
> assuming the software is identical or nearly identical apart from
> noncopyrightable differences.
The dev subversion repo is not a means of distributing to the
"general public". It distributes to our self-selected development
teams that are expected to be aware of the state of the code being
distributed.
When we distribute to the "general public", it is called a release.
> I have to ask, why does the ASF put in that language about
> "recipients" in the SGA and its CLAs? I have always found that rather
> peculiar. It is a question of general importance given the widespread
> reuse of Apache CLAs by other projects.
The patent license is from the patent owner to the recipient of the
software containing their contribution. It is not a license from the
ASF because we are not allowed to sublicense the patents. And, yes,
that license takes effect as soon as the contribution is sent to
one of our forums, with or without a CLA/SGA, and passes through
to recipients of subversion data for those contributions that were
deliberately contributed to the ASF.
....Roy
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Richard Fontana <rf...@redhat.com>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 07:11:23PM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> > An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
> > you and the general public. All we are doing
> > is exercising one of the rights granted to us
> > in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
>
> Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
>
> "You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
> distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
> no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
> prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
> sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
> works."
>
> To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
> to the rights granted to the Foundation.
I read it the same way as Matthew. I cannot understand how the SGA, as
quoted, is not a license to the general public once the Foundation has
chosen to "distribute" the software in question to the general
public. Even if the Foundation explicitly said "We are distributing
this software to the general public, but you the general public have
no right to distribute it further", I do not see how that cancels out
the existing upstream broad copyright license granted under the SGA,
assuming the software is identical or nearly identical apart from
noncopyrightable differences.
I have to ask, why does the ASF put in that language about
"recipients" in the SGA and its CLAs? I have always found that rather
peculiar. It is a question of general importance given the widespread
reuse of Apache CLAs by other projects.
- RF
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:06:10AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
> you and the general public. All we are doing
> is exercising one of the rights granted to us
> in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
Ok, I may be misunderstanding the SGA. Point 2 says:
"You hereby grant to the Foundation and to recipients of software
distributed by the Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,
no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce,
prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform,
sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative
works."
To me, that reads as a grant of rights to the general public in addition
to the rights granted to the Foundation. If I obtain code from the
Foundation that was provided to the Foundation under the SGA (and
obviously I should perform appropriate diligence to ensure that that's
the case), I'd have thought that I had been granted a license to
exercise the rights described. Are you saying that that's not the case
unless the copyright holder has somehow granted me an additional
license?
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
An SGA is between "you" and the "org", not
you and the general public. All we are doing
is exercising one of the rights granted to us
in the SGA- the right to public redistribution.
End users have no other conferred "rights" other
than whateverdue diligence they can perform about
the legalstatus of the distribution such as it is.
>________________________________
> From: Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>To: Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: "legal-discuss@apache.org" <le...@apache.org>; Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 2:03 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 10:31:45AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
>> Anything you can download from one of our public servers
>> counts as a distribution. However anything other than
>> an actual release should be viewed as a "work in progress"
>> with no promises about the legal status or overall quality
>> of the workother than that we have the right to distribute it.
>
>So if it's in a public subversion repository, and if it was correctly
>submitted under the terms of the SGA, a recipient would have the rights
>espoused in the SGA but should perform their own due diligence?
>
>--
>Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 10:31:45AM -0800, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> Anything you can download from one of our public servers
> counts as a distribution. However anything other than
> an actual release should be viewed as a "work in progress"
> with no promises about the legal status or overall quality
> of the workother than that we have the right to distribute it.
So if it's in a public subversion repository, and if it was correctly
submitted under the terms of the SGA, a recipient would have the rights
espoused in the SGA but should perform their own due diligence?
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
It's a question that comes up often enough
that we should probably devote some webspace
to documenting it, as it is somewhat unique
to the way the org conducts its work under
the full view of the public while trying
to distinguish between "controlled distributions"
like version control, nightly builds, etc, and
"uncontrolled, publicly advertised ones"- aka
releases.
>________________________________
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>To: legal-discuss@apache.org
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:42 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Anything you can download from one of our public servers
>> counts as a distribution. However anything other than
>> an actual release should be viewed as a "work in progress"
>> with no promises about the legal status or overall quality
>> of the work other than that we have the right to distribute it.
>>
>
>That's my impression as well. We believe in good faith that we are
>authorized to host the source code. But there may be files where we
>are in error in this belief. If errors are pointed out we'll quickly
>remove offending files. Via the process of Incubation and/or IP
>Clearance, and before every release, we do a more thorough review to
>further reduce the risk, so by the time software is released we can be
>more confident about attaching our brand and reputation to it.
>
>-Rob
>
>> HTH
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>> To: Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> Cc: legal-discuss@apache.org; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:28 PM
>> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>> wrote:
>>> Is there a concrete instance of this question you guys are interested in?
>>>
>>
>> The question is in the context of IBM's SGA for Symphony, where the
>> code is now in the SVN of the OpenOffice project.
>>
>> But, if you mean has anyone with a genuine interest in using the code
>> come forward and asked, then no, this has been hypothetical as far as
>> I can tell. Matt can speak for himself.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>>> Rob Weir wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 13:13:10 -0500:
>>>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > The SGA contains the following:
>>>> >
>>>> > "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
>>>> > of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
>>>> > recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
>>>> > worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
>>>> > copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
>>>> > publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
>>>> > Your Contributions and such derivative works."
>>>> >
>>>> > and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
>>>> > svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation",
>>>> > even
>>>> > if said code is in an unreleased branch?
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
>>>> OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
>>>> the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
>>>> IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
>>>> do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
>>>>
>>>> IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
>>>> gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
>>>> the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
>>>> statement about code.
>>>>
>>>> -Rob
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > Thanks,
>>>> > --
>>>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>>>> >
>>>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>>>> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
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>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM, Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anything you can download from one of our public servers
> counts as a distribution. However anything other than
> an actual release should be viewed as a "work in progress"
> with no promises about the legal status or overall quality
> of the work other than that we have the right to distribute it.
>
That's my impression as well. We believe in good faith that we are
authorized to host the source code. But there may be files where we
are in error in this belief. If errors are pointed out we'll quickly
remove offending files. Via the process of Incubation and/or IP
Clearance, and before every release, we do a more thorough review to
further reduce the risk, so by the time software is released we can be
more confident about attaching our brand and reputation to it.
-Rob
> HTH
>
> ________________________________
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
> To: Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> Cc: legal-discuss@apache.org; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:28 PM
> Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
> wrote:
>> Is there a concrete instance of this question you guys are interested in?
>>
>
> The question is in the context of IBM's SGA for Symphony, where the
> code is now in the SVN of the OpenOffice project.
>
> But, if you mean has anyone with a genuine interest in using the code
> come forward and asked, then no, this has been hypothetical as far as
> I can tell. Matt can speak for himself.
>
> -Rob
>
>> Rob Weir wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 13:13:10 -0500:
>>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> > The SGA contains the following:
>>> >
>>> > "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
>>> > of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
>>> > recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
>>> > worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
>>> > copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
>>> > publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
>>> > Your Contributions and such derivative works."
>>> >
>>> > and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
>>> > svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation",
>>> > even
>>> > if said code is in an unreleased branch?
>>> >
>>>
>>> By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
>>> OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
>>> the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
>>> IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
>>> do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
>>>
>>> IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
>>> gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
>>> the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
>>> statement about code.
>>>
>>> -Rob
>>>
>>>
>>> > Thanks,
>>> > --
>>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>>> >
>>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>>> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>> >
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Joe Schaefer <jo...@yahoo.com>.
Anything you can download from one of our public servers
counts as a distribution. However anything other than
an actual release should be viewed as a "work in progress"
with no promises about the legal status or overall quality
of the workother than that we have the right to distribute it.
HTH
>________________________________
> From: Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>
>To: Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>
>Cc: legal-discuss@apache.org; Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org>
>Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:28 PM
>Subject: Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
>> Is there a concrete instance of this question you guys are interested in?
>>
>
>The question is in the context of IBM's SGA for Symphony, where the
>code is now in the SVN of the OpenOffice project.
>
>But, if you mean has anyone with a genuine interest in using the code
>come forward and asked, then no, this has been hypothetical as far as
>I can tell. Matt can speak for himself.
>
>-Rob
>
>> Rob Weir wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 13:13:10 -0500:
>>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
>>> > The SGA contains the following:
>>> >
>>> > "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
>>> > of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
>>> > recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
>>> > worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
>>> > copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
>>> > publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
>>> > Your Contributions and such derivative works."
>>> >
>>> > and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
>>> > svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation", even
>>> > if said code is in an unreleased branch?
>>> >
>>>
>>> By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
>>> OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
>>> the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
>>> IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
>>> do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
>>>
>>> IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
>>> gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
>>> the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
>>> statement about code.
>>>
>>> -Rob
>>>
>>>
>>> > Thanks,
>>> > --
>>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>>> >
>>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>>> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>> >
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
>
>
Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
> Is there a concrete instance of this question you guys are interested in?
>
The question is in the context of IBM's SGA for Symphony, where the
code is now in the SVN of the OpenOffice project.
But, if you mean has anyone with a genuine interest in using the code
come forward and asked, then no, this has been hypothetical as far as
I can tell. Matt can speak for himself.
-Rob
> Rob Weir wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 13:13:10 -0500:
>> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
>> > The SGA contains the following:
>> >
>> > "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
>> > of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
>> > recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
>> > worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
>> > copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
>> > publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
>> > Your Contributions and such derivative works."
>> >
>> > and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
>> > svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation", even
>> > if said code is in an unreleased branch?
>> >
>>
>> By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
>> OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
>> the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
>> IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
>> do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
>>
>> IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
>> gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
>> the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
>> statement about code.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>>
>> > Thanks,
>> > --
>> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>> >
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
Is there a concrete instance of this question you guys are interested in?
Rob Weir wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 13:13:10 -0500:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
> > The SGA contains the following:
> >
> > "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
> > of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
> > recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
> > worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
> > copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
> > publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
> > Your Contributions and such derivative works."
> >
> > and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
> > svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation", even
> > if said code is in an unreleased branch?
> >
>
> By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
> OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
> the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
> IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
> do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
>
> IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
> gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
> the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
> statement about code.
>
> -Rob
>
>
> > Thanks,
> > --
> > Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
> >
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
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Re: Clarification of "distribution" under the SGA
Posted by Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>.
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mj...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
> The SGA contains the following:
>
> "Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
> of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
> recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
> worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
> copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
> publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
> Your Contributions and such derivative works."
>
> and similar language for patents. Is a checkout of code from an Apache
> svn repository considered "software distributed by the Foundation", even
> if said code is in an unreleased branch?
>
By way of background, this is recurring question that has come up with
OpenOffice. What is the status of code that has been contributed to
the ASF by SGA, but but yet been taken through an Podling release, or
IP Clearance and a normal release. In that intermediate stage, what
do we say about the ability of others to use the code?
IMHO, we can say little or nothing. How could we if it has not get
gone through a release? The release via our due diligence and vote is
the mechanism that we (the ASF, via a PMC) use to make a firm
statement about code.
-Rob
> Thanks,
> --
> Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
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