Hi, It has been my understanding that any existing code base that gets stored in an Apache Flex repo must be "donated" via the Apache Software Grant process, which essentially requires that the author of every line of code in the code base needs to sign a legally-binding document.
I just found out that, while that is still the preferred method, if a code base is already under the Apache License, it can also be "adopted" with much less hassle. Christophe Herreman, who also happens to be on our PMC, and one of the major contributors to AS3Commons, is interested in having Apache Flex adopt the AS3Commons code. I think this would be a good move for Apache Flex because we use some of AS3Commons in the Installer already so it would be good to have this code in a place we can control, especially if we want to see how much of it will work in FlexJS. So, first we should discuss whether we want to adopt AS3Commons and actually vote on it, then we will try to contact by email every past contributor to AS3Commons to see if they have any objections to having the code base adopted by Apache Flex. The wording of the email is still being finalized on the Apache legal-discuss mailing list, but basically, instead of having to track down every past contributor and get their signature on a Software Grant, we can now just gather email responses from as many of those past contributors as we can. After the email goes out, we'll wait 30 days or so for responses. If we get an objection from a past contributor, then we'll look to see what lines of code they contributed and determine what the impact would be of not having those lines of code in our code base. It might be easily replaceable. If we don't hear from a past contributor we will look at the risk of what might happen if they do respond later with an objection. So, we don't have to actually hear from every past contributor in order to proceed with the adoption, but we might decide not to complete the adoption if we get objections from or don't get a response from a major contributor. Technically and legally, we could "fork" this code without permission from anybody since the code is under the Apache License, but socially, Apache wants all code to come in voluntarily, which is why we want to make sure there are no objections from past contributors as well as anyone on this mailing list. Thoughts? -Alex
