The Legal Affairs Committee is responsible for establishing and managing legal policies based on the advice of legal counsel and the interests of the Foundation.
The committee was established in March 2007 with the purpose to distribute the legal affairs workload to a coordinated group of ASF members, to assign responsibility for legal policy deliberation and decision making to the same group under the supervision of the board, and to provide a structured means of participation and familiarization for those interested in taking over the Legal VP job one day.
It reports to the board each month, here are the reports to date.
Questions for the Legal Affairs Committee should be raised on LEGAL JIRA space.
Discussions are held on the public legal-discuss mailing list. See the legal-discuss archives for previous discussions.
The following pages provide information for users of Apache Products.
Apache appreciates feedback on our licenses, agreements and processes. Sadly, we are unable to offer legal opinions or advice to the public.
The following pages provide information for Apache Software Foundation committers to assist in their work on Apache Products.
ASF Release Policy - Apache Release Policy for Apache Products.
Previously Asked Questions - Information related to third-party license use in Apache Products.
Issues List - A reminder of our JIRA issue queue.
Source Header and Copyright Notice Policy - Instructions on the application of source headers to ASF source files.
Two historical documents providing guidance on the previous Legal VP philosophies are:
Sam Ruby's Ramblings of an ASF VP of Legal Affairs
Cliff Schmidt's Draft (and out of date) Third-Party Licensing Policy. While never enacted, this draft provided much guidance for subsequent third party licensing answers.
