Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Geertjan Wielenga <ge...@googlemail.com>]

Hi all,

Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically becomes
Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
donate code that we don't want to donate.

E.g.,  simply donating 'hg.netbeans.org' is going to be problematic, since
there's for example the 'nb-javac', i.e., javac fork in there, which indeed
can be excluded, though there are other pieces in hg.netbeans.org, such as
hg.netbeans.org/apitest, which we also don't want to donate since that's
also a fork of something GPL-licensed from the JDK. Moreover,
hg.netbean.org/contrib contains modules that are also potentially
contentious.

Hence, there is quite some work going on at the moment to identify which
parts we actually do want to donate. We don't want to find out afterwards
that we have donated code that belongs to the JDK which, of course, we can
then remove from the Apache repo, although we'd still have the history of
that erroneous commit in there, which we do not want to have happen.

Potentially, we need to go through every package going out and specifically
delineate what we are donating, if there's pieces in there that we're not
donating.

Maybe one approach could be to limit the wording of the code grant for the
hg.netbeans.org repositories to source code written in the Java programming
language to just those source code files within the "org.netbeans"
namespace, i.e. in the "org.netbeans" package hierarchy. Then, while the
transfer of that subset of code is taking place, which would be the
majority of the code we'd want anyway, we could look at the other code on a
case by case basis for inclusion in the donation.

Anyway, just sketching out the situation right now -- and again I had
assumed, falsely, that all these considerations would only be applicable at
the end of incubation, not right at the start. All this is the case since,
again, anything we put into an Apache repo is then at that stage Apache
code.

Thanks,

Gj

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Geertjan Wielenga <ge...@googlemail.com>]

The point from Oracle's point of view is that there should not be code in
Apache's repositories that is part of the JDK or forked from the JDK or for
some reason or another should not be donated. It's not about the "ASF will
not complain", instead, it's about "Oracle does not want to donate code by
accident that should not be donated".

I have a feeling that the incremental code donation approach might be the
one that ends up being taken, starting from the "org.netbeans" namespace,
which is all the code that we want to have in Apache NetBeans anyway. There
are quite a few different people involved in this, so quite some
discussions, and, for sure, the current draft of the CCLA is not the one
that will be signed.

Apologies for the time this is taking, though note that this was going to
happen sooner or later in the process; I assumed it would be at the end and
now it's taking place in the beginning.

Thanks,

Geertjan

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 1:18 PM, Emilian Bold <em...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > All this is the case since, again, anything we put into an Apache repo is
> then at that stage Apache code.
>
> BTW, not sure if we understand things the same here.
>
> With the CCLA Oracle grants a *license* of the code, not full ownership.
> So, anything we put into the Apache repo will have the ASF as a licensee
> and they will be free to use the Apache license for that code.
>
> So it's not like Oracle loses control of some precious thing. They still
> own the copyright. Worse case scenario a specific snapshot in time of some
> piece of code becomes Apache licensed.
>
> Furthermore, I believe that even if we sign the CCLA as is, we could
> still *import
> the code* incrementally.
>
> So, there is still an opportunity for Oracle to intervene and say: "hold
> on, we didn't expect this code to be there and we want to explicitly
> exclude it from the grant and update the CCLA". It seems understandable and
> I don't believe the ASF will complain. This could even be part of the
> incubator code cleanup we have to do anyhow.
>
> It took me a few hours to write some scripts to check the module licenses.
> What kind of effort are you doing behind the scenes now? Is some developer
> / lawyer taking each module and dependency and whitelisting it or what?
>
> It seems important to me we start this already. I believe we could use the
> current CCLA and start importing the code incrementally.
>
>
>
> --emi
>
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Geertjan Wielenga <
> geertjan.wielenga@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically
> becomes
> > Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> > donate code that we don't want to donate.
> >
> > E.g.,  simply donating 'hg.netbeans.org' is going to be problematic,
> since
> > there's for example the 'nb-javac', i.e., javac fork in there, which
> indeed
> > can be excluded, though there are other pieces in hg.netbeans.org, such
> as
> > hg.netbeans.org/apitest, which we also don't want to donate since that's
> > also a fork of something GPL-licensed from the JDK. Moreover,
> > hg.netbean.org/contrib contains modules that are also potentially
> > contentious.
> >
> > Hence, there is quite some work going on at the moment to identify which
> > parts we actually do want to donate. We don't want to find out afterwards
> > that we have donated code that belongs to the JDK which, of course, we
> can
> > then remove from the Apache repo, although we'd still have the history of
> > that erroneous commit in there, which we do not want to have happen.
> >
> > Potentially, we need to go through every package going out and
> specifically
> > delineate what we are donating, if there's pieces in there that we're not
> > donating.
> >
> > Maybe one approach could be to limit the wording of the code grant for
> the
> > hg.netbeans.org repositories to source code written in the Java
> > programming
> > language to just those source code files within the "org.netbeans"
> > namespace, i.e. in the "org.netbeans" package hierarchy. Then, while the
> > transfer of that subset of code is taking place, which would be the
> > majority of the code we'd want anyway, we could look at the other code
> on a
> > case by case basis for inclusion in the donation.
> >
> > Anyway, just sketching out the situation right now -- and again I had
> > assumed, falsely, that all these considerations would only be applicable
> at
> > the end of incubation, not right at the start. All this is the case
> since,
> > again, anything we put into an Apache repo is then at that stage Apache
> > code.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Gj
> >
>

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Emilian Bold <em...@gmail.com>]

> All this is the case since, again, anything we put into an Apache repo is
then at that stage Apache code.

BTW, not sure if we understand things the same here.

With the CCLA Oracle grants a *license* of the code, not full ownership.
So, anything we put into the Apache repo will have the ASF as a licensee
and they will be free to use the Apache license for that code.

So it's not like Oracle loses control of some precious thing. They still
own the copyright. Worse case scenario a specific snapshot in time of some
piece of code becomes Apache licensed.

Furthermore, I believe that even if we sign the CCLA as is, we could
still *import
the code* incrementally.

So, there is still an opportunity for Oracle to intervene and say: "hold
on, we didn't expect this code to be there and we want to explicitly
exclude it from the grant and update the CCLA". It seems understandable and
I don't believe the ASF will complain. This could even be part of the
incubator code cleanup we have to do anyhow.

It took me a few hours to write some scripts to check the module licenses.
What kind of effort are you doing behind the scenes now? Is some developer
/ lawyer taking each module and dependency and whitelisting it or what?

It seems important to me we start this already. I believe we could use the
current CCLA and start importing the code incrementally.



--emi

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Geertjan Wielenga <
geertjan.wielenga@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically becomes
> Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> donate code that we don't want to donate.
>
> E.g.,  simply donating 'hg.netbeans.org' is going to be problematic, since
> there's for example the 'nb-javac', i.e., javac fork in there, which indeed
> can be excluded, though there are other pieces in hg.netbeans.org, such as
> hg.netbeans.org/apitest, which we also don't want to donate since that's
> also a fork of something GPL-licensed from the JDK. Moreover,
> hg.netbean.org/contrib contains modules that are also potentially
> contentious.
>
> Hence, there is quite some work going on at the moment to identify which
> parts we actually do want to donate. We don't want to find out afterwards
> that we have donated code that belongs to the JDK which, of course, we can
> then remove from the Apache repo, although we'd still have the history of
> that erroneous commit in there, which we do not want to have happen.
>
> Potentially, we need to go through every package going out and specifically
> delineate what we are donating, if there's pieces in there that we're not
> donating.
>
> Maybe one approach could be to limit the wording of the code grant for the
> hg.netbeans.org repositories to source code written in the Java
> programming
> language to just those source code files within the "org.netbeans"
> namespace, i.e. in the "org.netbeans" package hierarchy. Then, while the
> transfer of that subset of code is taking place, which would be the
> majority of the code we'd want anyway, we could look at the other code on a
> case by case basis for inclusion in the donation.
>
> Anyway, just sketching out the situation right now -- and again I had
> assumed, falsely, that all these considerations would only be applicable at
> the end of incubation, not right at the start. All this is the case since,
> again, anything we put into an Apache repo is then at that stage Apache
> code.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gj
>

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Geertjan Wielenga <ge...@googlemail.com>]

Just explaining the current status, broadly, so everyone understands where
things are and why.

Gj

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz <bdelacretaz@apache.org
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Geertjan Wielenga
> <ge...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > ...Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically
> becomes
> > Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> > donate code that we don't want to donate...
>
> "We" being Oracle, right?
>
> I don't think this discussion is relevant for the NetBeans podling,
> but maybe I missed something.
>
> -Bertrand
>

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Mark Struberg <st...@yahoo.de.INVALID>]

It's relevant as this code is part of the hg repo afaiu.
So Oracle cannot just drop the whole hg repo over the fence.

If this conclusio is correct, then we have 2 options imo.
1.) Deductive: either we are back to a git-filter-branch approach. And repeat this until the remaining parts are clean
2.) Inductive: we start with a fresh git repo and add start to add the core parts after reviewing class by class.

In any case we need to keep the old hg history around somewhere else it seems?
In the first case we at least should be able to keep the history for the remaining parts.
In the second case we start from scratch without any history

Or did I miss something?

LieGrue,
strub


> Am 18.11.2016 um 13:59 schrieb Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Geertjan Wielenga
> <ge...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> ...Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically becomes
>> Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
>> donate code that we don't want to donate...
> 
> "We" being Oracle, right?
> 
> I don't think this discussion is relevant for the NetBeans podling,
> but maybe I missed something.
> 
> -Bertrand

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Geertjan Wielenga
<ge...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> ...Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically becomes
> Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> donate code that we don't want to donate...

"We" being Oracle, right?

I don't think this discussion is relevant for the NetBeans podling,
but maybe I missed something.

-Bertrand

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Geertjan Wielenga <ge...@googlemail.com>]

Nothing is completely settled yet, we need to make very sure we're not
donating code that should not be donated.

And, indeed, incremental code grants could be the way to go. I'm not aware
of any code that we want to donate that is outside the org.netbeans
namespace and, should we later find that we need to include that, we could
-- once all sides agree -- do a separate donation for those parts as they
come up.

Gj

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:27 PM, Emilian Bold <em...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Wasn't this already settled in the CCLA and nb-javac thread?
>
> Could we expect the source code by, say, January 1st 2017?
>
> How about you do this incrementally and update the grant each time:
>
> You start with the build and Platform cluster, license-check it, change the
> license to Apache, sign the CCLA just for these modules and upload the code
> to Apache.
>
> Then continue with, say, Javascript, license-check that, change the license
> to Apache, update the CCLA and upload the modules to Apache.
>
> ... and so on until there is nothing left.
>
>
>
>
> --emi
>
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Geertjan Wielenga <
> geertjan.wielenga@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically
> becomes
> > Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> > donate code that we don't want to donate.
> >
> > E.g.,  simply donating 'hg.netbeans.org' is going to be problematic,
> since
> > there's for example the 'nb-javac', i.e., javac fork in there, which
> indeed
> > can be excluded, though there are other pieces in hg.netbeans.org, such
> as
> > hg.netbeans.org/apitest, which we also don't want to donate since that's
> > also a fork of something GPL-licensed from the JDK. Moreover,
> > hg.netbean.org/contrib contains modules that are also potentially
> > contentious.
> >
> > Hence, there is quite some work going on at the moment to identify which
> > parts we actually do want to donate. We don't want to find out afterwards
> > that we have donated code that belongs to the JDK which, of course, we
> can
> > then remove from the Apache repo, although we'd still have the history of
> > that erroneous commit in there, which we do not want to have happen.
> >
> > Potentially, we need to go through every package going out and
> specifically
> > delineate what we are donating, if there's pieces in there that we're not
> > donating.
> >
> > Maybe one approach could be to limit the wording of the code grant for
> the
> > hg.netbeans.org repositories to source code written in the Java
> > programming
> > language to just those source code files within the "org.netbeans"
> > namespace, i.e. in the "org.netbeans" package hierarchy. Then, while the
> > transfer of that subset of code is taking place, which would be the
> > majority of the code we'd want anyway, we could look at the other code
> on a
> > case by case basis for inclusion in the donation.
> >
> > Anyway, just sketching out the situation right now -- and again I had
> > assumed, falsely, that all these considerations would only be applicable
> at
> > the end of incubation, not right at the start. All this is the case
> since,
> > again, anything we put into an Apache repo is then at that stage Apache
> > code.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Gj
> >
>

Re: Current status of NetBeans code donation

[Emilian Bold <em...@gmail.com>]

Wasn't this already settled in the CCLA and nb-javac thread?

Could we expect the source code by, say, January 1st 2017?

How about you do this incrementally and update the grant each time:

You start with the build and Platform cluster, license-check it, change the
license to Apache, sign the CCLA just for these modules and upload the code
to Apache.

Then continue with, say, Javascript, license-check that, change the license
to Apache, update the CCLA and upload the modules to Apache.

... and so on until there is nothing left.




--emi

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Geertjan Wielenga <
geertjan.wielenga@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Since transferring code to Apache means that the code automatically becomes
> Apache licensed, it is of extreme importance that we don't inadvertently
> donate code that we don't want to donate.
>
> E.g.,  simply donating 'hg.netbeans.org' is going to be problematic, since
> there's for example the 'nb-javac', i.e., javac fork in there, which indeed
> can be excluded, though there are other pieces in hg.netbeans.org, such as
> hg.netbeans.org/apitest, which we also don't want to donate since that's
> also a fork of something GPL-licensed from the JDK. Moreover,
> hg.netbean.org/contrib contains modules that are also potentially
> contentious.
>
> Hence, there is quite some work going on at the moment to identify which
> parts we actually do want to donate. We don't want to find out afterwards
> that we have donated code that belongs to the JDK which, of course, we can
> then remove from the Apache repo, although we'd still have the history of
> that erroneous commit in there, which we do not want to have happen.
>
> Potentially, we need to go through every package going out and specifically
> delineate what we are donating, if there's pieces in there that we're not
> donating.
>
> Maybe one approach could be to limit the wording of the code grant for the
> hg.netbeans.org repositories to source code written in the Java
> programming
> language to just those source code files within the "org.netbeans"
> namespace, i.e. in the "org.netbeans" package hierarchy. Then, while the
> transfer of that subset of code is taking place, which would be the
> majority of the code we'd want anyway, we could look at the other code on a
> case by case basis for inclusion in the donation.
>
> Anyway, just sketching out the situation right now -- and again I had
> assumed, falsely, that all these considerations would only be applicable at
> the end of incubation, not right at the start. All this is the case since,
> again, anything we put into an Apache repo is then at that stage Apache
> code.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gj
>