[forge-dev] Migrating Forge to the EPL license- how we can all help

Richard Fontana rfontana at redhat.com
Sat Aug 11 14:42:18 EDT 2012


That's a question I usually like to avoid being asked, since there's
no clear anwer. :) It doesn't depend on the license, though. There are
advantages and disadvantages to having per-file notices that to me
seem to balance out. There's no single standard practice in open
source development. I generally believe it should be up to the
developers to decide whether they want per-file license notices or
not.

However, if you choose not to have per-file license notices, there
should be *some* indication to the world of what rights they have to
use the code. I would recommend at least having a top-level file
indicating that the code is licensed under the EPL (that can just be
the same language as would be in the recommended header), as well as
inclusion of a copy of the EPL (which you should have regardless of
whether you have per-file notices or not).



On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 02:40:28AM -0400, Lincoln Baxter, III wrote:
> I think that was me ;)
> 
> Do we need the file headers at all with the EPL?
> 
> /*
>  * Copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
>  *
>  * Licensed under the Eclipse Public License version 1.0,
>  * available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
>  */
> 
> ~Lincoln
> 
> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Richard Fontana <rfontana at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>     Hi,
> 
>     Just a note on that license notice:
> 
>     There's nothing inherently wrong with that - it's the Apache License
>     2.0 standard notice recommended by the ASF but with the EPL
>     substituted as the license.
> 
>     However, I recently recommended to a developer of a new EPL-licensed
>     JBoss-related project to use a simpler notice:
> 
> 
>       Copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
> 
>       Licensed under the Eclipse Public License version 1.0, available at
>       http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
> 
> 
>     That would be my recommendation here, just because we don't have any
>     true standard and simpler legal notices seem preferable.
> 
>     (Substitute another copyright holder if appropriate, but for Red
>     Hat-copyrighted source files use "Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates"
>     as above.)
> 
>     I dis-recommended the notice commonly used by Eclipse Foundation
>     projects, for any of you who've seen those, because I find them
>     annoying and they are not quite a 'standard'.
> 
>     - Richard
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 03:17:32PM -0400, Lincoln Baxter, III wrote:
>     > Hey everyone,
>     >
>     > Thanks for "volunteering" to help with the EPL license effort.
>     >
>     > The first thing we should do to get started migrating the Forge license
>     is each
>     > choose module(s) that we'd like to help migrate. Simply reply here with
>     the
>     > forge/core module you are taking on, and we will try not to overlap.
>     >
>     > Once you've chosen your module(s), we'll need to take the following
>     steps.
>     >
>     >  1. In all of the source file, check the /** License */ header to ensure
>     that
>     >     the (c) Copyright is owned by JBoss.
>     >
>     >       □ If it is, replace the header with the following License:
>     >
>     >         /**
>     >          * Copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
>     >          *
>     >          * Licensed under the Eclipse Public License Version 1.0 (the
>     >         "License");
>     >          * you may not use this file except in compliance with the
>     License.
>     >          * You may obtain a copy of the License at
>     >          *
>     >          *     http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
>     >          *
>     >          * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
>     software
>     >          * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
>     BASIS,
>     >          * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express
>     or
>     >         implied.
>     >          * See the License for the specific language governing
>     permissions and
>     >          * limitations under the License.
>     >          */
>     >
>     >       □ If it is not, then record the name of the file and at the end of
>     your
>     >         review, send a list of all such files discovered as a reply to
>     this
>     >         thread so that we can review the necessary actions to take (most
>     likely
>     >         no action will be required, and we will simply leave the header
>     in
>     >         tact.)
>     >
>     >  2. Send your changes as a pull request for review.
>     >
>     >  3. Another committer will review your pull request and merge the
>     changes. Note
>     >     - please DO NOT merge your own pull requests. We should have at least
>     two
>     >     sets of eyes reviewing each license change. We don't want to get this
>     >     wrong!
>     >
>     >  4. Drink beer.
>     >
>     > Thanks folks! Let the re-licensing begin!
>     >
>     > --
>     > Lincoln Baxter, III
>     > http://ocpsoft.org
>     > "Simpler is better."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Lincoln Baxter, III
> http://ocpsoft.org
> "Simpler is better."


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