On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 05:57, lars hofhansl <[email protected]> wrote: > Hypothetically speaking...Need to think before I hit submit. :) > > > I was wondering for a while how one could take a project that does or does > not have single copyright owner and merge that with a main Apache project. > asynchhbase came to mind (much better client than the one we have)
That's the most tricky part in Open Source. At first, you have to differentiate Copyright and Licensing. Apache projects are Apache-licensed, so you can take the code and do with it what you want (except claiming copyright). (This is the very short version.) For all contributions to Apache projects (including code and documentation) the original contributor holds copyrights. There is no transfer of copyright over to Apache. However, the ASF holds copyright for the combined work that is the released product. A missing copyright notice is no indication that there is no copyright. All you need to care for as a user/consumer of Apache software is the license. Enjoy. The PMC is responsible to make sure that releases indeed allow for and fully are Apache Licensed. For more details, pls ask on the legal mailing list or see the link given in HBASE-3870. Bernd (WINAL)
