Just to summarize here what I make of this overall thread. Yes, there is confusion about what goes in LICENSE and what goes in NOTICE. One trend that I favor is to use NOTICE for all attributions and use LICENSE to provide a copy of ALv2. That there is a README that points to the importance of both is valuable. Also, considering that the standard Apache preferred comment in the headings of code names the NOTICE file suggests to me, at least, that NOTICE is the place.
That is not consistent practice and I see that it gets discussion on general-incubator and legal from time to time. What is clear is that attribution is always required by ASF and there are recent threads that affirm that. Also, copyright cannot be pre-empted by a new notice and licensing is not transfer of copyright. I don't know how some of the ambiguities in the various practices and policy statements, but it strikes me that always assuring attribution and preservation of whatever the essential previous notices were. (If there is an SGA, then the previous license doesn't matter, but copyright and notification of the fact of copyright seems appropriate.) >From my armchair perspective, there is good advice on this thread and I >appreciate how quickly this is being addressed. As you can see, you are not >alone in having to deal with this. Thanks, - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Andy Seaborne [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andy Seaborne Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 06:41 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Missing NOTICE Information? (/me finds a new incubator-general@ message about NOTICE, saving the need to find the old one) The Kafka release discussion is illuminating. Point 4 is particularly relevant on minimality of the NOTICE. Andy -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [VOTE] Release Kafka 0.7.0-incubating Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:41:06 -0500 From: Kevan Miller <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: [email protected] I took a look at the svn source and the binary artifact and have some additional comments. 1) Your svn contains a number of jar files. I don't believe that the LICENSE/NOTICE file properly reflects the license/notice requirements of these jar files. 2) Why are these jars being stored in your svn at all? 3) Your LICENSE file only includes the ALv2 license. Yet your binary artifact (and your source) include artifacts with non-ALv2 licenses. For instance jopt-simple is MIT. All of the relevant licenses need to be included in your LICENSE file. You have the SCALA license in the notice file. I would expect it to be in the LICENSE file 4) Your NOTICE file includes lot's of "This product includes X, developed by X.org" Your notice file should only include notices that you are *required* to have. Don't include acknowledgements in your notice file just for completeness. Furthermore, when a notice is required, make sure it is accurate. For instance, ALv2 requires that you include a readable copy of the notices in the NOTICE file. If there isn't a NOTICE file, you should not provide a "notice". joda-time-1.6.jar includes a NOTICE file. It's content is: "This product includes software developed by Joda.org (http://www.joda.org/)." That's what needs to be included in your NOTICE file. For differently licensed artifacts, you need to follow the requirements of their licenses. BTW, it looks like hadoop and pig projects are distributing jars without license/notice files? 5) Your source/binary don't have a DISCLAIMER. An incubation disclaimer is required. --kevan
