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As i read the CLA and the software grant agreement the ASF doesn't own the code, it's just a license agreement and not a copyright transfert. That means the ASF is granted by the copyright holder the right to "reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute and sublicense" the code, that's most of the rights of the copyright holder except the right to register the work to the Copyright Office and the right to claim copyright and sue for infringements.
I think it's interesting to compare this situation with the Mozilla relicensing. While Netscape was entitled to relicense the work of its employees (as the ASF is allowed to relicense the work of the contributors who signed the CLA), they spent a significant time hunting down every non-netscape contributor to request the permission to relicense their code. IMHO the relicensing to the Apache License 2.0 is a similar case.
these days, who knows. good, old fashioned, reasonable, understandable copyright law is turning into intellectual property law. the ASF is governed by US law which is case-based. so until cases have passed through the courts, it's purely a matter of one legal opinion against another. for a proper answer, the best advice must be: ask your question to the best lawyer you can afford.
but (from what i know of) the ASF they have always claimed that the copyright ownership of code donated to the ASF and then used in their software products is vested with them. the ASF does have access to legal advice and i for one am willing to believe that this advice is better than any speculations on my part (or the others i know on this list).
if you have any further concerns relating to possible ASF claims may i politely suggest that you take them to a more appropriate forums where those with authority to speak for the ASF will be able to provide goods answer.
there ain't nobody here but us chickens ;)
- robert
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