I think the main risk is due to the nature of the patent process, the difficulty of patent searches, and the apparent ineptitude of the US PTO. It's certainly possible that an Apache committer could inadvertently violate a patent, just as any other developer might.
The copyright issue cannot be ruled out, but I think the risk there is very minimal. Given that Apache is a meritocracy, the chances of one of the committers being dumb enough to commit copyrighted code in full view of the community is very small (albeit non-zero). I would suggest that you contact the ASF directly, rather than looking at this from the project level. You can look at the ASF Bylaws here: http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html and the primary contact information is here: http://www.apache.org/foundation/contact.html -- Martin Cooper > -----Original Message----- > From: Malcolm Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 5:02 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Indemnification & copyright > > > To Struts Team, Developers and Users > > I am presently in a predicament on my present contract. I > am not allowed to use STRUTS unless my employer can be > indemnified from copyright or patent infringement. > 1. Is there anyway my employer can be indemnified from > copyright or patent infringement with Struts? > 2. Is there a company that provides this service? > 3. Is this really an issue with Struts? > > The liability extends from the use of intellectual property. > A developer knowingly or unknowingly contributes a piece of > software to the Open Source community that contains > intellectual property. I then use that piece of open source > software. > > Thanks for any comments, > malcolm > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
