NOTICE: Remove Apache License text, keep the attribution - #117
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Justin Mclean noted during the 2.2.0-rc1 IPMC vote that this NOTICE
carries the full Apache-2.0 boilerplate, and that NOTICE is reserved for
notifications that are legally required.
The text came from upstream: github.com/greenplum-db/gpbackup-archive ships a NOTICE whose
body is the VMware attribution followed by the Apache-2.0 grant
boilerplate, and the whole file was copied in when the code was donated.
Copying all of it is more than section 4(d) of the Apache License asks
for. It requires "the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE
file", not the file itself, and infra.apache.org/licensing-howto.html is
explicit that a bundled dependency's NOTICE "must be analyzed and the
relevant portions bubbled up", and that one should "keep NOTICE as brief
and simple as possible" and "not add anything to NOTICE which is not
legally required".
So keep the part that is an attribution notice:
This product includes software originally developed by VMware.
Greenplum Database Backup
Copyright 2017-Present VMware, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
and drop the license grant, which is not one. The Apache-2.0 terms
continue to reach users through LICENSE and the source file headers,
which is where they belong.
Assisted-by: Claude Code
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What does this PR do?
Removes the Apache License text from
NOTICE, keeping the attribution it isactually there to carry.
Why
During the 2.2.0-rc1 IPMC vote,
Justin Mclean listed this under "should fix": the NOTICE files of the
cloudberry-backup and cloudberry-go-libs components carry the full Apache-2.0
boilerplate, while NOTICE is reserved for notifications that are legally
required.
The text is inherited rather than invented: the upstream repository ships a
NOTICE whose body is the VMware attribution followed by the Apache-2.0 grant,
and the whole file was copied in when the code was donated. Copying all of it
is more than the license asks for.
Section 4(d) of the Apache License requires "the attribution notices contained
within such NOTICE file" — the notices, not the file. And
infra.apache.org/licensing-howto.html
is explicit:
What stays and what goes
Kept, because it is an attribution notice:
Removed, because it is a license grant rather than a notice: the
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 ...paragraph through... limitations under the License.The Apache-2.0 terms continue to reach users through
LICENSEand the sourcefile headers, which is where they belong.
Type of Change
Impact
User-facing changes:
NOTICEis shorter. No functional change.Checklist