[LEGAL-459] Add question and answer about using code from Stack Overflow to resolved questions

• Type: Question
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Component/s: Document
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Justin Mclean
• Created: 23/May/19 21:46
• Updated: 29/May/19 06:38
• Resolved: 29/May/19 06:38

Description

I’ve noticed a couple of places recently where people have made PRs with code form stack overflow in them.Now AFAIK this code is CC-BY-SA [1]. Stack Overflow had discussed changing licence to to MIT [2], but it never went ahead. This would make it Category X [3] i.e not able to be included in Apache Licensed software.

I suggest adding an item to [4] to make this clearer to people.

Something like:
Can I copy code form Stack Overflow and contributive it to an ASF project?
No as it is licensed under a CC-BY-SA license. You could ask the owner of the code if they would give you permission to use it under another license.

1. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12527/do-i-have-to-worry-about-copyright-issues-for-code-posted-on-stack-overflow
2. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-license-the-mit-this-time-with-attribution-required?cb=1
3. https://apache.org/legal/resolved.html#cc-by
4. https://apache.org/legal/resolved.html