apache-extras.org launches

[Posted December 14, 2010 by corbet]

There are announcements from both the Apache Software Foundation and Google on the launch of apache-extras.org, which appears to be a hosting site for Apache-related projects with ~~(possibly) proprietary~~ a wider range of licenses. "Among the ASF's strengths are its well-established requirements relating to intellectual property management, license use, and community management. Apache-extras.org provides a home for projects that are unable to, or do not wish to, conform to those rules yet still want to signal their relationship to official Apache projects. As projects on the new Google-hosted service will not be managed by The Apache Software Foundation, participants are allowed to use whatever license and project management process they desire."

apache-extras.org launches

Posted Dec 14, 2010 15:25 UTC (Tue) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (8 responses)

This is a horrible idea. The Apache Software Foundation has always been a stronghold of the open source movement. Someone who doesn't put his software under an open source license is not part of that movement and thus shouldn't be allowed to use the name apache.

apache-extras.org launches

Posted Dec 14, 2010 15:42 UTC (Tue) by aristedes (guest, #35729) [Link] (6 responses)

The site is still only for open source projects. People don't tend to use public repositories for closed source projects. However, GPL and other non-Apache License 2.0 software can be hosted in this new site. This creates a home for plugins, scripts and other bits of pieces which cannot live in the main Apache project for licensing or other reasons.

apache-extras.org launches

Posted Dec 14, 2010 15:49 UTC (Tue) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (5 responses)

But it says "with (possibly) proprietary licenses". Is that an error then?

Licenses

Posted Dec 14, 2010 15:54 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

The text you quote is inspired by the Apache announcement, which says "participants are allowed to use whatever license...they desire." If that text turns out to be incorrect - perhaps they meant "whatever free license" - then my interpretation will obviously be incorrect and will need to be fixed up.

Licenses

Posted Dec 14, 2010 16:09 UTC (Tue) by rgardler (guest, #71845) [Link] (3 responses)

The text you have may be "inspired" by the text of the press release, but not factual in any way.

The press release doesn't say explicitly "open source licenses only", but since Google Code requires licenses to be open source we didn't really see the need to be that explicit ;-)

Anyway, to remove any confusion whatsever apache-extras will not allow proprietary licences. It will allow Free and Open Source licences that cannot be used for code hosted on ASF infrastructure - including one-way compatible licences such as the GPLv3.

Licenses

Posted Dec 14, 2010 16:25 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

In fact, it expicitly says "whatever license." If you didn't mean "whatever license," it would have been good not to say "whatever license."

In any case, my apologies for the misinterpretation, the item has been changed.

Licenses

Posted Dec 14, 2010 16:36 UTC (Tue) by rgardler (guest, #71845) [Link] (1 responses)

Yeah, you are right. We clearly live in a world where "whatever license" means "whatever FOSS licence". If only the rest of the world thought that way too...

Thanks for the update to your article.

Licences

Posted Dec 14, 2010 20:39 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Updating the press release would also be a good idea ("...to use whatever free software license..."). I also would have assumed it meant that proprietary licences would be accepted. Since Google distributes proprietary software, the mention of "Google-hosted" doesn't clarify the licence situation.

Thanks for dropping by with the good news. I'm relieved to hear Apache won't be delivering proprietary software.

apache-extras.org launches

Posted Dec 14, 2010 16:11 UTC (Tue) by rgardler (guest, #71845) [Link]

FOSS licences only are allowed on Google Code - this is an error in the report. See my further comments below.

No git

Posted Dec 15, 2010 17:52 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

They're still missing git support, which is kind of a bummer from a new project POV.