LWN.net Logo

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

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

Posted Jan 18, 2013 20:26 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953)
In reply to: The apology line forms on the left. Please take a number. by rcweir
Parent article: A discordant symphony

So correct me where I'm wrong.

There is code in the SVN which may or may not be available under an open license. No on can know whether this code is open until and after Apache has reviewed the code, confirmed and voted that it is freely available. Otherwise you are at your own risk on whether it's freely available and because the official signed agreement (and any containing provisions) is not available well you are going to be pretty much guessing. (this is the first post out of more than a dozen in which you've freely admitted this after berating people on how simple it is)

This [code review] process will not be completed until and after the code has been inserted into the working Apache OO.org code, anything not deemed "worthy" of the Apache OO.org codebase will not be processed at this time and could in the future become lost code. (you have no intent to review or ascertain ownership of any code you don't use in the Apache OO.org codebase).

Not only that, but Apache will not help anyone sort out confusion on any piece of code unless that code follows the above process and is merged into Apache OO.org codebase first.

The only way for Apache to confirm any piece of code is actually under it's stewardship is for that code to end up in Apache OO.org.

Finally, Even if volunteers only wanted to help sort ownership of the SVN code and NOT integrate it into Apache OO.org they would be refused as the only help being asked for and accepted is to integrate into the Apache codebase. Apache will provide no assistance in ascertaining ownership of any code which is not used in Apache OO.org codebase.


(Log in to post comments)

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

Posted Jan 18, 2013 20:55 UTC (Fri) by rcweir (subscriber, #48888) [Link]

If you have a question for Apache, ask it at Apache. As I've said before, we work openly and transparently on our mailing lists, not behind paywalls. I'm probably the exception, in that I am willing to pay extra for an Lwn.net subscription, so I can read my FUD a week in advance.

-Rob

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

Posted Jan 18, 2013 21:01 UTC (Fri) by rcweir (subscriber, #48888) [Link]

And I should also remind you that use of open source is *always* at your own risk. This is true of every project and every open source license.

So your choice is really whether waiting for an Apache release, with the additional review we put into it is important to you. Many of our users feel that this is indeed important to them.

In fact, I'd say that LibreOffice also agrees on this, since they waited for the Oracle contribution of OpenOffice to be reviewed and approved by us before rebasing their product on it. So their confidence in changing the project's license from LGPL to MPL was only possible because of the careful review we did on the OpenOffice contribution.

But if you don't feel that the benefits of that extra review is worth the wait then don't wait. But also don't cry about it.

-Rob

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds