Re: Public domain packages ( was Re: [A4] release plan thoughts )

[Sam Ruby]

Jason van Zyl wrote:

Public domain.  (I.e. no license, no control).

I don't think we can use packages with no license at all. IANAL, but wouldn't it mean that no license == no grant of use? But actually it's in the public domain, so it would be ridiculous that the author doesn't it want to be used.

I had the same thoughts. I'm not happy with depedencies on something that does not have a license. I would prefer that we took the content, repackaged it under the org.apache.avalon.something namespace and issued a release under the Apache license.

Can we rely on public domain packages and put them in CVS?

I would like to get a higher opinion on this - Sam?, Greg?

In the two cases that I know of it's perfectly fine. The Concurrent code
is Doug Lea's so it's pretty safe to say it's just fine. It's going into
Tiger with small changes from it's present state. The other package is
Antlr which is also just fine. Terence Parr, the main Antlr fellow,
refuses to take part in any licensing issues whatsoever so puts
everything in the public domain. It means you can do whatever you want
with it. It also means the author has no legal recourse in the event of
a lawsuit as there is no disclaimer as such that is present in the
Apache license. As a user of the code you're perfectly safe.

I am quite comfortable with dependencies on both of those packages. So, I concur with Jason's sentiment that in these two cases it's perfectly fine.

In a perfect world, there would be a clearcut license which would resolve all of this. In this case we have to rely on the stated intent of the developers. Had one or both of these been new pieces of software developed by individuals without an established reputation, I would be hesitant.

- Sam Ruby



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