On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Robert Burrell Donkin <robertburrelldon...@gmail.com> wrote: > (Using [1] as an illustration. I recommend [2] for further reading. > Please jump in where I've been unclear) >
Thanks for writing this up. I'm going to restate what I think you said in my own words, just to make sure I understand. Let me know if any of this sounds wrong. > > A copyright notice is a simple claim of copyright ownership: for > example "Copyright 2000, 2010 Oracle and/or its affiliates." > > It is vital that only the owner (or their agent) alters a copyright > notice unless specific written permission been granted. > And since the SGA does not specifically say that, I'm understanding that the SGA alone is insufficient. (Maybe in future we should add a check box for that to the SGA, or something like that?) > Apache projects work in a highly collaborative fashion without > assigning copyright to a single legal entity[3]. Copyright ownership > is therefore complex. The version control system forms the canonical > record of contribution authorship (when committers follow their > CLA[4]). A secondary list of copyright ownership at the top of each > document is difficult to maintain with the level of accuracy required > by law. So, Apache policy [5] requires that copyright notices are > removed or relocated (to the NOTICE document [6]). > So, for Apache committer authored files, SVN is the canonical record of the copyright owners contributions, and the Apache ID's used in SVN can be traced back to iCLAs, etc. > But the owner must either provide written permission or perform the > changes themselves. In the case of our example[1], Oracle should be > contacted ASAP and asked to provide written permission to either > relocate or remove the copyright notices. > Is there a form for this? Is an email from them to the list sufficient? Or do we need something signed and faxed, like the original SGA was? It sounds like we're asking for permission to remove the Oracle copyright statements from the individual source files and to put a statement in the NOTICE file like your [6]. This will probably require that Oracle confirm their preferred form for this, in particular the range of years. We have statements in individual files, but it looks like we need a statement that applies to the entire codebase. > > A source header[5] is legal boilerplate included within a document, > and (as Apache understands it) excludes the copyright notice. For our > example, the source header is [7] which gives some general meta-data, > disclaims warranty and refers to a public license (LGPLv3) for the > file (and so is quite typical). The copyright owner (or anyone with a > appropriate license) may issue any number of licenses[8] for a > document. An appropriate source header allows a license to be bundled > with the document[9] but does not prevent the document being licensed > in other ways. > So the fact that Oracle gave us the source file under Apache 2.0 does not undo its availability under the previous LGPL license.... > For someone with a suitable alternative license, modifying or removing > a source header should not required additional written permission. In > particular, source arriving at Apache under a CCLA, ICLA or software > grant should have a suitable alternative license. So that downstream > consumers are clear about the license issued by Apache (and to > simplify maintenance), policy asks that source arriving under CLAs and > grants is edited to replace the existing header with the standard > Apache source header [10]. > ...however, in cases where the code is outright given to the project under ALv2 via mechanisms like an SGA, we replace other license headers with ALv2 headers. And what about the part that says "DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER"? If I understand correctly, we will request permission to move the copyright from Oracle. And that we don't need additional permissions to remove the header, beyond the permissions we have via the SGA. > For source that is not covered by CLAs or grants, different rules > apply [11]. So the key question for every document is whether it is > covered by the grant or it's inclusion relies on the application of an > open source license. > For this project we need to be very careful to remember that not all files in the source tree were covered by the SGA. In particular there are other 3rd party open source components. So we need to be careful. > > Questions? Want more details? Should I move on to strategy suggestions? > I think I understand this better. Thanks. So, strategy.... Will Apache Rat help with this? I thought it had a mode that added Apache headers. But I don't know if it handles something like this, where we are removing existing headers as well. -Rob > Robert > > [1] > /************************************************************************* > * > * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. > * > * Copyright 2000, 2010 Oracle and/or its affiliates. > * > * OpenOffice.org - a multi-platform office productivity suite > * > * This file is part of OpenOffice.org. > * > * OpenOffice.org is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify > * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 > * only, as published by the Free Software Foundation. > * > * OpenOffice.org is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, > * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of > * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the > * GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 for more details > * (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code). > * > * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License > * version 3 along with OpenOffice.org. If not, see > * <http://www.openoffice.org/license.html> > * for a copy of the LGPLv3 License. > * > ************************************************************************/ > > [2] http://rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm > [3] In contrast to the FSF who find that ownership is convenient for > enforcement of strong copyleft license > [4] http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt clause 7 insists that > committers clearly indicate any commits which are not their original > work > [5] http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html > [6] Add something like > "This software is based on code that is copyright 2000, 2010 Oracle > and/or its affiliates." > [7] > * OpenOffice.org - a multi-platform office productivity suite > * > * This file is part of OpenOffice.org. > * > * OpenOffice.org is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify > * it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 > * only, as published by the Free Software Foundation. > * > * OpenOffice.org is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, > * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of > * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the > * GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 for more details > * (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code). > * > * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License > * version 3 along with OpenOffice.org. If not, see > * <http://www.openoffice.org/license.html> > * for a copy of the LGPLv3 License. > [8] Unless the owner is bound by an exclusive contract > [9] Which is very convenient for downstream consumers > [10] > Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one > or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file > distributed with this work for additional information > regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file > to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the > "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance > with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at > > http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 > > Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, > software distributed under the License is distributed on an > "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY > KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the > specific language governing permissions and limitations > under the License. > [11] The original license should be preserved, and the Apache header > only added when a substantial change is introduce >
