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Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:59:47 -0400
From: Shane Curcuru <asf@shanecurcuru.org>
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To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Subject: Re: Upcoming CloudStack release
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Ewan & CloudStack folk: a quick reminder of how the Legal Affairs 
Committee works might be helpful.

The legal-discuss@ list is a public place where anyone (although 
primarily Apache committers) can discuss legal issues relating to Apache 
projects.  This is a good place to bring a question to either 1) get the 
obvious answer that's already documented, or 2) refine the question to 
be very specific in the legal sense.  It is not a place to get any new 
policy decisions or answers to new questions made.  So it's not likely 
that you'll get a specific "OK" on this list for a new question.

The LEGAL JIRA queue is for *specific* legal questions.  Primarily, it's 
for Apache projects who have a specific and documented need to do 
something, and need a legal approval or ruling if the specific thing you 
need to do is allowable by ASF policy or not.

Note that hypothetical questions will typically not get an answer in 
JIRA.  It's too difficult to answer hypothetical legal questions, and 
it's not necessarily a good use of volunteer member or pro bono counsel 
time to answer that kind of question.

Does that make sense?  This is the legal realm, which is a bit different 
than most other lists at the ASF.  8-)

Also, Brett seems to have some really good advice here.

On 8/2/2012 8:47 AM, Brett Porter wrote:
>
> On 02/08/2012, at 10:27 PM, Benson Margulies <bimargulies@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> In my personal opinion, a request for an exception to the LGPL
>> policy from a podling should be put up for discussion at
>> general@incubator before being sent to legal. However, that's just
>> my opinion, and anyone who wants to throw a tomato at me for
>> manufacturing a spurious procedure is welcome to do so.
>
> *lob* :)
>
> IMO, the incubator is for pointing podlings at the right resources,
> not becoming a layer of indirection. But I'm not sure we need to get
> into the role of the Incubator here ;)

+1 Brett.  The best possible scenario would have been for 
mentors/Incubator peeps to ensure the question was laid out with the 
specific details before coming here.  Then refine the very specific 
question on legal-discuss@, and then create a LEGAL JIRA to decide.

>>
>> More broadly, I wonder if it really should be legal, as opposed to
>> the board or some other delegate, who decides if adequate
>> justification is offered for such an exception.
>
> As a policy question, I think the board has already delegated that
> authority to this committee: "the Legal Affairs Committee be and
> hereby is responsible for establishing and managing legal policies
> based on the advice of legal counsel and the interests of the
> Foundation".

+1 Brett.  The board has been consistent for several years now that 
specific policy areas have been delegated to various officers.  Running 
to the board before the relevant VP has provided a specific answer to a 
specific question is typically not productive.

After an officer renders a decision, if the relevant PMC still really 
believes it's wrong, would you make an appeal (so to speak) to the board.

- Shane

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