[LEGAL-226] Do we need to include 3rd party licenses verbatim in our source distributions

• Type: Question
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Richard N. Hillegas
• Created: 24/Sep/15 18:14
• Updated: 17/Feb/16 19:00
• Resolved: 17/Feb/16 19:00

Description

The Spark developer community is discussing what kind of license information should be included in Apache source distributions. The discussion began on http://apache-spark-developers-list.1001551.n3.nabble.com/VOTE-Release-Apache-Spark-1-5-1-RC1-td14310.html and was moved to http://apache-spark-developers-list.1001551.n3.nabble.com/Discuss-NOTICE-file-for-transitive-quot-NOTICE-quot-s-td14326.html

The two opinions seem to be:

1) It is sufficient for the NOTICE file to refer to licenses which are posted on 3rd party websites.

2) The source distro needs to bundle verbatim copies of 3rd party licenses as is done, for instance, by the THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.txt in the JDK.

We would appreciate any guidance you can give us.

Thanks,
-Rick