________________________________
From: Justin Mclean <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2026 6:24 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Proposal: host vendor HAL repositories under github.com/NuttX
Hi,
A few points in this thread about ASF policy need correcting.
Thanks for the clarification about ownership. I think I am the one who
injected that word into the conversation.
A software grant (SGA) is a licence, not a transfer of ownership. Espressif
would keep the copyright and could keep using and licensing the HAL however it
likes. The ASF does not become the sole owner. From
https://www.apache.org/licenses/: “In all cases, contributors retain full
rights to use their original contributions for any other purpose outside of
Apache while providing the ASF and its projects the right to distribute and
build upon their work within Apache.”
Espressif’s CCLA is not enough on its own. It covers contributions from its
listed employees, not an existing code base developed outside the ASF. Bringing
esp-hal-3rdparty into an ASF repository needs a software grant from Espressif
and IP clearance, see https://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/. The PMC does
the paperwork and the Incubator approves it by lazy consensus. The PMC also
needs to check the licences of any third-party code inside the HAL.
Would this set the Copyright holder to the ASF? If so then would any version
used by the vendor necessarily be a different version, no under the ASF
repository, with a different copyright?
Or do you mean this would be 3rd part code retained in the NuttX repository
under the vendor's license?
github.com/NuttX is not controlled by the ASF, so it is not “under our
control”. Code the project maintains must be housed in ASF repositories, see
https://infra.apache.org/project-repo-policy.html. That rules out NuttX
committers maintaining vendor HALs there.
""Vendor HALs" being what? A version of the HAL with vendor's copyright? Or a
version of the HAL maintained outside of the NuttX repository.
Greg
PS: Its been awhile, I hope things have good with you. I am glad to see you
involved. I will stop injecting misinformation.
Thanks,
Justin
