The TL;DR: What LibreOffice has done is no use for the creation of AOO documentation.
THE SITUATION First, what LibreOffice does about cleaning up their help files is not something of concern to AOO (although leaving in links to openoffice.org support would be annoying). LibreOffice has made two noteworthy forks, one from openoffice.org (under LGPL license), and one from AOO (under Apache license). The second allowed LibreOffice to fork code contributed to the ASF by IBM that was not part of openoffice.org. The Apache-licensed fork also allowed the derivative to be licensed under the MPL, the license offered on current releases of LibreOffice. [L]GPL licenses do not permit this. It is also the case that patches and bug reports at AOO can be absorbed by LibreOffice (and not vice versa) although the maintenance and feature changes in the time since LibreOffice was originally forked makes LibreOffice increasingly different. Technically, making a derivative that is made available under a different license does not impact the copyright on the original code or the unaltered code in the derivative. That has to do with how copyright works. Generally, one has no copyright on work of another. The prominent exception is work for hire, where the employer has copyright where the employee would have otherwise. That is not the issue here. I do not speak for the ASF or ASF Legal. I can point out that the ASF has expressed disinterest in policing how others fork code from ASF projects apart from abuses of ASF trademarks. ASF has a SERIOUS POLICY AND PRACTICE COMMITMENT to clean provenance and good open-source citizenship of ASF projects and what is carried in project repositories and releases. IT IS THAT COMMITMENT that gives rise to the difficulty of building ASF Project content based on the OpenOffice.org documentation produced elsewhere and not part of the Oracle grant of openoffice.org code to the ASF. (This extends to how libraries under different licenses, when optionally used in builds of ASF releases, are excluded from direct inclusion in the ASF Project repositories, a provision that is not helpful in deriving documentation for AOO.) While it may seem peculiar, it is the case that the ASF has no concern were a third party to fork the OpenOffice.org 3.2 documentation and align it with current AOO releases, provided that ASF trademarks were respected and there was no claimed origin and support of the ASF and the AOO project. The results should respect all licenses and copyright of the original documentation, of course. It is unfortunate that the good offices of the ODF Authors project were not accepted at a time when it could have made a difference. That option is no longer available. Jean Weber is to be commended for the effort she expended in providing that opportunity. The AOO Project did not exercise the will or the capacity to take that avenue. And here we are, where we have always been, as time goes by. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: marcia wilbur <ai...@well.com> Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2021 04:17 To: doc@openoffice.apache.org Subject: Re: Question sent to ASF legal around using the old OOo documentation Of course, while in the libreoffice code last week, I did notice a tremendous amount of references to and use of "openoffice". I had been in the help for Libreoffice! /user/share/libreoffice/help/en-us Attached is a screen capture "default.css". Now, I am not *as* familiar (yet) with the Apache License as I am with the GPL, So, I think this may be another ticket for legal to review. In a fork with GPL, no reference to the original software is made. I forked remastersys, and worked with the dev to transition, then renamed it respin. No instances of the original app/tool are in my code. However, not sure about Apache license. Most of my dev history is under the GPL. - but I had conducted a search in libreoffice and returned a large amount of files and directories: openoffice Maybe legal knows, because I even found starmath there. So: Can a fork use the original tool/app/utility name in the code they release. It's just odd to see a fork reference the original in the code and directories... Having so many references to openoffice in the code really seems to indicate a relationship or something. Anyway. as a developer, with respect to the original app - maybe change the references in the code to Libreoffice! Anyway - Keith, do you know if this is "okay" or not. Or if you can ask legal, they may have an answer. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean Weber" <jeanwe...@gmail.com> To: doc@openoffice.apache.org Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2021 2:45:41 AM Subject: Re: Question sent to ASF legal around using the old OOo documentation Help content is part of the program itself, so of course it's Apache license. User guides are not part of the program, hence the uncertainty of whether they must also be the same Apache license. Jean On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 7:35 PM marcia wilbur <ai...@well.com> wrote: > > FYI - Help content in AOO - these are under apache license 2.0 > > > ====================================================================== > ==== > Guide content for Writer (example) > > Found in aooversion/main/helpcontent2/source/text/swriter/guide > directory > ====================================================================== > ==== Looks like the exact same as Libreoffice. Did not locate the > content files in LibreOffice to confirm the license. > > Just FYI on the status of the help files. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dennis Hamilton" <orc...@msn.com> > To: doc@openoffice.apache.org > Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 10:02:50 PM > Subject: RE: Question sent to ASF legal around using the old OOo > documentation > > I believe GPL is still category X. > > The compatibility claim is not bi-directional. Apache-licensed code > can be incorporated in GPL-licensed software, it is the reverse that > is not OK generally. (A clear-cut example is LibreOffice rebasing > their code on AOO in order to incorporate the IBM-donated bits, but > LibreOffice code cannot be backported to AOO.) > > The only chance would be with respect to CC-By 3.0+ and there is a > restriction with respect to Digital Rights Management that seems to get in > the way as far as the Apache Foundation's source codes are concerned. > > If that is how the chips fall, the only way to build off of the OpenOffice > 3.2 documentation is in a non-ASF project. > > - Dennis > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jean Weber <jeanwe...@gmail.com> > Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 16:58 > To: doc@openoffice.apache.org > Subject: Re: Question sent to ASF legal around using the old OOo > documentation > > I notice the stock reply, "It would be best if the project got permission > from the original owners of the content to relicense it under a more friendly > license." > > As I'm sure Keith knows, that is not going to happen, because (a) > several of the original contributors to OOo docs will not agree; and > (b) we would not be able to contact all of the contributors, because we don't > have current contact info or they have died. > > The reply also said, "CC-BY 3.0 can't be in a release." However, we > could drop the CC-BY and just keep the GPL licensing; the old docs > said "You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of > *either* the GPL or CC." The reply doesn't specifically say GPL is not > allowed, says "Apache License, Version 2.0 [is] compatible with version 3 of > the GPL." > IANAL, but that seems to me to say GPL licensing of our docs would be okay. > > Jean > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: doc-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: doc-h...@openoffice.apache.org > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: doc-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: doc-h...@openoffice.apache.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: doc-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: doc-h...@openoffice.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: doc-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: doc-h...@openoffice.apache.org
