Apologies for not changing the subject sooner. I want to try to clear up some things in case someone actually does try to create a wiki page from these emails.
Comments in-line... On 9/9/14 2:53 PM, "Justin Mclean" <jus...@classsoftware.com> wrote: >Hi, > >>> -Every line of code was written by somebody, and therefore copyrighted >>>by >>> that somebody (or their employer). > >Depends on the actually LICENSE. If you look at [1] you see that it >states: > >2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of >this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You 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 the Work and such Derivative >Works in Source or Object form. Again, I am not an authority, but I believe in the paragraph you quote the term "Copyright License" is referencing the permission to make copies. I don't what the legal term I was addressing is, but I would call it "Copyright Ownership". I would doubt that the AL would give any person the right to claim copyright ownership for lines of code they did not write. IOW, I doubt this paragraph gives you authority to add your name to the NOTICE file claiming to be one of the original developers of the Flex SDK, or change the copyright notice in the 3rd party file Om wants to use. And it is just a mental model, not a legal reference, and only applies to works under AL since in the broader sense there is code placed in the public domain or defaulting to public domain after copyright protection runs out, but my statement that every line of code is copyrighted by somebody has held up well for me. Also I did not reach this conclusion just by my own reading. This mental model is influenced from various conversations with Adobe lawyers. > >>> -There is an unwritten policy that says that Apache projects do not >>>"take" >>> code. It must be "donated". > >In this case IMO there's no need to, but it certainly doesn't hurt to ask >the owner of the code for permission, even though it is already given by >the license (see above). I should probably be more clear what "take" means because it confused me when I first joined Apache. From various mailing lists, there seems to be a distinction between AL code that is "contributed" to the ASF vs 3rd-party code that uses an AL. Roy Fielding, one of the Apache Founders, wants all contributions to be voluntary. There is a thread on board@ (which most of you can't see) titled "Voluntary Contributions" where that claim is made. That's why I said it is "unwritten", but it looks from that thread that it is accepted practice at the ASF. I used to think the distinction had to do with whether a source file was in an ASF repo or not, but after learning more about 3rd-party header policy and the desire to list non-ASF components somewhere like LICENSE, I now think the distinction is whether the source file has been voluntarily contributed is not easily visible, which is why folks are now pushing for documentation of what files are 3rd-party. For Om's case, we are a bit lucky that the source file's header is not the same as the standard ASF header, but in many other cases it could be. And even for this file, the differences are subtle, so the LICENSE or somewhere should provide a "heads up" to the consumer. So "take" means grabbing a source file and making it look like it was contributed by changing the header if needed. Grabbing a copy of a source file intact, which is what Om wants to do, is ok, as long as it is documented and treated as 3rd-party and permission does not need to be sought if the source is going to be given third-party treatment. So what can/can't you do to an AL, 3rd party file that you can/can't do to an ASF file? IOW, why is there a distinction at all? AFAICT, there is no difference to us committers. You can modify the code either way. But I would offer these thoughts: 1) If you are just fixing a bug in 3rd-party code, we should probably contribute that fix to the original community. 2) Often, the original community committers do not have ICLA's on file to contribute to our copy. And there may be some legal indemnification aspect to source in a release that is ASF AL vs 3rd-party AL. -Alex
