Re: Is it ok to put ASF header onto ALv2 compatibly licensed code?

On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Roman Shaposhnik <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> =======================================================
> Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
> or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
> distributed with this work for additional information
> regarding copyright ownership.
> =======================================================
>
> There are two way I can see how to read this "Licensed to..." statement.
> The first one is, indeed, along the lines of an original author re-licensing
> code under a different license.

I don't think this can be read that way. The quoted portion refers
only to the software being licensed to the ASF, not the ASF
re-licensing the software under a different license. The relevant text
for that normally immediately follows the quoted portion:

"... The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License,
Version 2.0 (the 'License'); ..."

> Clearly, only original author(s) can make that statement.

Not necessarily. The original license may allow for third-parties to
sublicense the code, given restrictions.

> However, a different way to read it (tell me if I'm stretching here) is to
> interpret it as an overall project that is being "Licensed to..." with the
> file itself remaining under the original license.

I think that interpretation fails due to the explicit wording "under one
or more contributor license agreements."

The original license is not a CLA.

That said, whether the original license allows a third-party (the ASF)
to sublicense the covered code under yet another license (the Apache
License) depends completely on the original license itself.

- Mike