On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:25 PM, Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> wrote:
On 2013-05-02 14:10:04 -0700 (-0700), Mark Washenberger wrote:
[...]
> I'd never considered it either, until I found out that Apache
> Software Foundation projects are explicitly required to *not* put
> copyright headers in their source files (they do, however, retain
> license headers). I realize that rule doesn't apply to us, but if
> it's good enough for ASF, how are we different?
[...]

I gather the important distinction here (why their policy differs
from ours) is that the ASF requires assignment of copyright from
committers to the Foundation while OSF does not.



I was wondering that as well as I re-read my notes. However, digging deeper, it looks like our contributor agreement is substantially the same as theirs, and I can't find the word "assign" in their contributor agreement anywhere.

http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt

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.

https://review.openstack.org/static/cla.html

Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to the Project Manager and to recipients of software distributed by the Project Manager 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.

The "Grant of Patent License" sections look similar as well (and also fun! I love the bit about terminating licensing to any entity that enters into litigation against a contributor).