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Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:15:11 -0500
From: "William A. Rowe, Jr." <wrowe@rowe-clan.net>
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Subject: Re: Apachelounge problems
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Tom Donovan wrote:
> 
> Maybe not threatening - but it is an eye-opener for some of us that the
> Apache2 license protects "released" versions of Apache differently.

First, I hope I was not threatening.  As I said, my appologies if it came
across that way, I'm not feeling up to par.  That said, IANAL but I will
pass on what I understand from my few years here...

> My (possibly faulty) understanding was that the whole "Redistribution"
> and "Disclaimer of Warranty" parts applied to *any* Apache software -
> even if it was built from today's bug-ridden head revision of the trunk,
> and that it was  a solid and reliable protection from just the scenario
> you describe.

Right - Disclaimer of Warranty means unless you add a Warranty, you are
offering none under the Apache License.  If they don't accept that license,
they don't have a license to even use the code for any purpose.

That applies no matter if it's code you wrote yourself and release under
the AL, or code you grab from our working space, e.g. /dev/ or svn, or
an actual release.

The idea, and again IANAL, is that /dev/ and svn are work product, and not
finished product, so a third party who has an *IP issue* with our sources
will complain to us either way, and it will be resolved promptly (by removing
the offending code, or by our disputing their claim).

I understand, again IANAL, but there are different considerations about
work product and released products which infringe on someone else's IP.
The ASF wants to support you all, our users, by dealing with these.  If
you grab code out of svn or /dev/ for httpd related development, no
trouble at all, you are handling work product.  If you release that code
as a product, then it's not the ASF's product, it's *your* product (which
you have to give a different name to, per the Apache License).

> The "you-must-build-it-yourself-from-source" rule to test a release
> candidate probably isn't too much bother for Unix users, but many
> Windows users look to a small number of "Windows builders" to build a RC
> like Steffen's VC8 build so they can test what they expect to put into
> production once the version is released (*if* it is released of course!)

Right.  For purpose of discussion, if he posted a link to such binaries
only on testers@httpd or dev@httpd, this would be less of an issue (or no
issue at all).  If you subscribe to testers@ or dev@ we all presume you
know what these concepts mean, and will reply about problems to the right
place where the problem can be solved, and know this is not a finished
product.  You are one of the workers on this project.

I only want to protect our users and distributors by making this difference
really clear.  The binary on his site was "Steffan's Web Server" not the
Apache HTTP Server 2.2.5.  When httpd votes to release it and the RM posts
up the binary, that "gate" is the exit door for the "product" to become
the ASF's.

> The angst over Steffen's build sounds a bit more territorial than legal
> to me. Just my 2c worth...

Nope.  Not territorial, only frustrating since we had this discussion
in January.

Bill