Licensing of configuration files?

I asked James about this a while back with regards to settings.php, actually. It's a little bit of a gray area, but the general guideline we worked out is that despite settings.php being technically code, what's actually stored there is data, not anything complex enough for copyright to even apply. So if someone tried to invoke GPL or AGPL to get access to a site's settings.php file, which has database info in it, we'd be justified in brushing them off.

Without knowing how the Solr config file works I can't say for certain, but if it's really just configuration then it's probably covered by the same "too simple to count" loophole. If it's more complex, like an ant build script, then, um, I'd have to get back to you on that.

So, "needs more info". :-)

I don't know much about Drupal's cvs commit policies, but I do know a little about licensing and copyright law. I assume the relevant policy prohibits uploading copyrighted/unlicensed code to the repo so that Drupal can't be charged with infringement.

Works (including software) are protected by copyright to the extent that they are expressive. Most software authors hold the copyrights to their work, and grant a copyright license (e.g. GPL, LGPL, apache, BSD, etc.) to customers for the use and distribution of the software.

It's important to remember that copyright protects expression, not ideas or data. I think Crell is correct that config files are generally not expressive enough to be protected by copyright. Perhaps some of the comments in the file might be, but even that is doubtful. Moreover, if there is only one way to express an idea, copyright protection generally will not apply. This goes to your comment about how it would be impossible to generate a config file that is not derived from the original. Finally, copying the config file under these circumstances would likely fall under the "fair use" defense to copying.

Ultimately, however, I'm not sure that I see any problem whatsoever. The file in question is licensed under the apache license, which explicitly grants you the right to create derivative works and to redistribute either the original code, or a derivative work (provided that you place a notice in the file that you have modified it). See http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0. Honestly, it's a little hard to imagine how you could violate the apache license.

That said, I'm not familiar with the relevant policies for Drupal CVS commits, so if there is some other issue besides copyright licensing that governs commits, YMMV.

I'm not really worried here about enforcement, so much as not running afoul of the wrath of Larry and Gerhard for violating the Drupal CVS policies. It would be a real PITA to have to have these files hosted elsewhere, however.