[Task] Legacy Alibaba copyright headers: decide Pekko Route continuation vs. pure ASF header

[alaahong]

These four issues capture the non-blocking follow-up items raised by Justin Mclean (IPMC) on the 2.1.0-incubating IPMC vote thread (https://lists.apache.org/thread/6m0vhnc3zknb58t6rkg3wlpt2bp6rg5r).

Background

During the donation of the Fesod codebase, the PPMC decided in issue #878 to adopt the "Pekko Route" for IP clearance: legacy files inherited from Alibaba EasyExcel must keep the original Alibaba copyright statement immediately after the standard ASF license header. This was implemented via PR #877 (reference example) and PR #897, and issue #878 was closed.

In the 2.1.0-incubating IPMC vote thread, reviewer Justin Mclean observed that 393 of 531 .java files still carry:

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2018-2024 Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
 */

and suggested these files should use the standard ASF header only, since the Software Grant Agreement (SGA) is complete and the attribution is already listed in NOTICE.

This conflicts with the previously decided Pekko Route (retain Alibaba attribution in derived files).

TBD

1. Confirm with Mentors / PPMC whether to: a. keep the Pekko Route (ASF header + retain Alibaba copyright line in legacy-derived files), or b. move to a pure ASF header (drop the Alibaba copyright line) now that the SGA is complete and NOTICE lists the attribution.
2. Once decided, either:

• close this issue with a rationale recording the retained Pekko Route, or
• open the follow-up bulk header normalization with Apache RAT validation (Unknown Licenses = 0).

[pjfanning]

I think this needs to be taken to the Legal Team in JIRA.
I'm on the Pekko PMC and fully aware of the licensing issue. We were told to keep the Lightbend source headers.

[psxjoy]

+1 to @pjfanning ‘s suggestion of opening an Apache Legal JIRA ticket for clarification.

Justin's points reflect the standard Incubator approach, but Fesod's situation has some specific nuances.

In my view, this does not need to block the release we are currently preparing. We can get legal confirmation on the copyright retention requirements and implement the changes in our next release.