All rights reserved

Posted Jan 17, 2013 16:23 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: All rights reserved by rcweir
Parent article: A discordant symphony

So the ASF has the right to release a pile of code under a free license, but is choosing not to do so until parts of it are integrated into 4.0? What if others wish to make use of bits of the code that you have no interest in?

All rights reserved

Posted Jan 17, 2013 16:45 UTC (Thu) by rcweir (guest, #48888) [Link] (10 responses)

IANAL, but I don't see any issues here.

Start with the terms of the SGA as stated here:

http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt

Then look at the README file in the root of the contributed code:

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/openoffice/symphony/trun...

As stated there, the license headers clue you in on which specific files were contributed under the SGA. Ironically, the same text that some are expressing so much angst about is the same text that allows anyone to see what the contribution is. Go figure.

If it is not clear whether the code is suitable for your particular use, then it is your responsibility to get competent advice. But all the data you need is right there.

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 16:54 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (9 responses)

IAANAL, but the SGA has:

"Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions
of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Foundation and to
recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of,
publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
Your Contributions and such derivative works."

That's fine as long as the Foundation is distributing the work, but from another comment by you:

"These files have not been published by Apache"

which leaves open the question of what distribution actually is in this case - I'd have thought that having the code in svn would count as distribution, but I'd also have thought it counted as publishing. It'd be straightforward for the ASF to make the situation completely unambiguous.

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:18 UTC (Thu) by rcweir (guest, #48888) [Link] (8 responses)

The terms of the SGA are exactly what they say. I cannot add or subtract a word of it. All I can do is point you to it.

Generally, an SGA gives sufficient rights for project members to work on the code and prepare it for release. If you want to help with that then we'd welcome your help. Send a note to dev@openoffice.apache.org and introduce yourself. However, if your needs require code only after it has been reviewed, tested, and voted on as an Apache release, then I'll be equally happy to hear from you then.

-Rob

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:25 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (4 responses)

Why would the ASF be unwilling to unambiguously state that the software is available under an open source license?

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:42 UTC (Thu) by rcweir (guest, #48888) [Link] (3 responses)

>Why would the ASF be unwilling to unambiguously state that the software is available under an open source license?

If you have a question for the ASF, then why don't you ask them? They have a legal discussion mailing list where you are free to ask them about what an SGA means. But I do know that they value transparency and would probably not be keen on answering questions on pay-walled websites from anonymous posters.

http://www.apache.org/foundation/mailinglists.html#founda...

Regards,

-Rob

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:46 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

Boy, you just never miss a chance to snipe at your critics, do you?

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:57 UTC (Thu) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link]

It is hard to believe you do not know the above poster, nor his contributions to the community, or good will in asking the question.

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Posted Jan 17, 2013 20:53 UTC (Thu) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

Were you always such a darling, or it's only the last few years that made you so unpleasant a person?

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Posted Jan 21, 2013 8:20 UTC (Mon) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link] (2 responses)

Which seems to describe to me rather precisely what Italo Vignoli wrote: IBM hasn't released to the open source universe basically anything and it is (so far) a pure marketing fluff.

Matěj

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Posted Feb 1, 2013 1:03 UTC (Fri) by mema (guest, #89121) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, it seems to me that some people basically want to complain about both IBM and Apache OpenOffice, mainly because of their own political leanings.

The donation of the Symphony code to Apache was noted both by IBM, Apache, and even Meeks at his blog.

Since when is a donation, nothing? Only when IBM does it and its not under the GPL?

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Posted Feb 3, 2013 21:26 UTC (Sun) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

Just to say: I have personally absolutely nothing against Apache Foundation (my server runs Apache httpd and I am quite with that, a lot of my colleagues work with various Apache Foundation related projects quite happily), nor I have anything against Apache license (all my code is licensed under MIT/X11, if I can help it).

My problem is with the people kind-of-relasing code under uncertain situation and not willing to clear it up. I cannot help myself but to feel that there is some attempt to keep the copyright status unclear so that the codebase they have no control over cannot profit from their code. Which seems to me to be against the spirit of all open source movement stands for. Just to be completely clear, and I am very much hoping I am wrong in my feelings, and the situation will settle quite quickly.

Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:33 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, the ASF says that only the company that contributed the files originally can replace the license headers of the files granted and IBM seems uninterested to do that unless a specific file is incorporated in an official release. They don't want to do that for the contribution as a whole.

For the original files contributed by Oracle this took a very long time to sort through all the files by an Oracle employee to double check Oracle really had the right to do that for all the files mentioned in the software grant and/or had to ask to have additional files added to the grant. Only IBM knows how much work that really would be for the symphony files.

Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:46 UTC (Thu) by rcweir (guest, #48888) [Link] (2 responses)

>only the company that contributed the files originally can replace the license headers of the files granted

That is a policy statement, not a legal statement.

This is an important distinction. For example, an Apache project can not release software containing GPL code. That is a policy requirement. But legally, anyone else, outside of Apache, is free to mix ALv2 and GPL code together, if that suits their needs. The licenses are compatible in that way.

You should not confuse the stricter policy requirements incumbent on an Apache project versus what the license permits any random person to do.

-Rob

Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:52 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

But the license has been granted from IBM to Apache, not to us. Unless and until Apache explicitly adds a specific grant of license to us, we're just eavesdroppers, with no rights to modify or distribute.

It doesn't have to be in every header; a simple document, just like IBM's, would be enough. Something along the lines of "This code is released to the general public under the terms of the Apache License v2", or whatever language you guys actually like to use.

Unless and until you explicitly release the code, it sure looks to me that IBM has given it to you, but not to us. I see no clear chain of permissions that would allow me to change and share that code freely.

Posted Jan 17, 2013 17:55 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

"But the license has been granted from IBM to Apache, not to us."

Well, kind of. Part of that license is a grant of permissions to anyone to whom that software is distributed by Apache. The question is what the precise meaning of "distribute" is in this case - we've already had an assertion that the code in question hasn't been published by Apache. In any case, Rob's right that this isn't the right venue for an authoritative answer, and so I've mailed the appropriate mailing list.