The apology line forms on the left. Please take a number. [LWN.net]

The apology line forms on the left. Please take a number.

Posted Jan 18, 2013 0:23 UTC (Fri) by rcweir (subscriber, #48888) [Link]

Did you even read the parent article? It has nothing to do with "license clarity". The main thrust of it was a claim that that there was no work ongoing at Apache to merge the Symphony code. The article took as its assumption that the plan of record was to do the so-called "slow merge".

But as I showed in my response to the article, this is just wrong. The merging work is occurring in branches and anyone can follow the work there:

http://lwn.net/Articles/532945/

And did you even read the LO marketing director's post? He is even further out in left field, claiming that IBM never contributed code to Apache:

http://lwn.net/Articles/532694/

The apology line forms on the left. Please take a number.

Posted Jan 18, 2013 4:29 UTC (Fri) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]

Rob said:
"Did you even read the parent article? It has nothing to do with "license clarity""

The Article said:

"That, of course, is an entirely non-free license header. Interestingly, over 2,000 of those files also have headers indicating that they are distributable under the GNU Lesser General Public License (version 3). These files, in other words, contain conflicting license information but neither case (proprietary or LGPLv3) is consistent with the Apache license. So it would not be entirely surprising to see a bit of confusion over what IBM has really donated. "

Sure... _nothing_ to do with license clarity... at all!

To summarize:

1/ IBM and Apache announce that they have signed a secret legal document
2/ IBM PR announce that they have donnated something called 'Symphony' under AL2 license. Since the document describing what 'Symphony' actually _is_ is 'private, for all we know, what is cover be a Basic Applesoft program that play Beethoven 9th.
3/ An IBM employee dump a bunch of files with random license headers.
4/ Rob, another IBM employee claim that none knows what's in it until some undisclosed uniquely qualified person spend the time to 'inspect' it.
Of course according to Apache's own policy, apache membera shall not touch the license/copyright header unless he is the owner... add to that that non-apache member have no access to the secret license document, so would be incapable of 'inspecting' the code's license in the first place. Which lead with the practical limitation that only IBM employees could safely touch that code...

5/ So in conclusion IBM has granted a license to Apache to make some publicly undisclosed list of file available under AL2. but in the end it is practically still only available to IBM.

===

1/ IBM has a private Island in the Bahamas...
2/ IBM announce in PR campaign that, in a burst of generosity, now the public will be allowed to visit the island.
3/ but... to visit you must first acquire the Island nationality, which can only be done via a Work visa and 3 years of continuous work on the island next to it... which happen also to be owned by IBM.

The OT trivia line forms on the right. Please take a number.

Posted Jan 18, 2013 5:15 UTC (Fri) by ghane (subscriber, #1805) [Link]

I was a user of StarOffice, then bought licences from Sun, then used OO, and now LO. I have no technical or legal brilliance to share.

However, looking at the second article quoted above: http://lwn.net/Articles/532694/

"Please remember that Italian have invented fake donations back in the
year 315, when the fake "Constantin donation" allowed the birth of the
Vatican State and the power of the Popes (which are both based on a
false document)."

If it *had* been created in AD 315, it would not have been a fake, would it? That's the whole point.

And now, back to your regular programming ...
--
Sanjeev

The OT trivia line forms on the right. Please take a number.

Posted Jan 18, 2013 10:35 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

It could still have been a fake even if the false document dates back to 315 (which we can find no trace of and nor could people a millennium ago for whom this was a more pressing matter). Forging a contemporary document is a far more ordinary activity that forging a centuries old one, but it's the same crime, just with more risk of detection because eye-witnesses to the facts will still be alive to testify.