On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 06:16:39PM -0500, Brian Jones wrote: > Okay, there is a solution that is rather expedient to fixing the > classpath/classlib licensing problems. The FSF has within it's power > the ability to relicense the software under new terms and conditions or > could in fact dual license the software under both the current license > and a suitable Apache friendly license. All that is required is to win > the argument with Richard Stallman or Bradley Kuhn. And that would have > to start with getting most of the committers on board with the idea and > the project maintainer.
Yes, in theory. In practice, the ASF has only begun to formalize a framework last year to figure out what sort of licenses, beside the Apache license, are Apache license friendly. There has been an ongoing discussion among developers, and afaict, its inconclusive. There are rumours of LGPL making it through the gates of being acceptable for Apache every few months, but they turn out to be no more than rumours. The same goes for CDDL, MPL, CPL and various other copyleft licenses. The whole concept of copyleft is not something many ASF members are fond of, since they see it as adding unnecessary burdens on their downstreams. That's why it is very unlikely, that any license change, if it is not the Apache license, will be accaptable to the ASF. I've participated in several dicussions with many ASF members on how to help bridge that licensing gap. We've spent months trying to come up with ways that would allow everyone to have their cake and eat it too, but in the end, there was always some blocker issue. I can pretty authoritatively say that Apache Harmony has no interest in taking part in GNU Classpath development, unless it is being developped as an *exclusive* Apache project. Given the absolute unwillingness of the ASF to license any Apache code in a way that would make it possible for others to reuse it under a more liberal, mutually compatible license, that would squarely exclude the majority of current users of GNU Classpath. That is a very, very bad tradeoff. There is simply no middle ground between ASF's incapability to compromise on a pragmatic solution (MIT license, for example), and the actual needs of runtime developers (the class library license needs to be compatible with almost anything out there, and the Apache 2 license does not meet that requirement). That's not a problem the FSF can fix. It's something only ASF's membership can change. And it is not something ASF's membership sees as a problem, in the first place, afaict from various discussions on the Apache Harmony mailing lists. > This is how we did the license change from LGPL to GPL+exception. Gcj > (gcc) needed us to switch from LGPL to the exception bits because it is > what they were already using to make certain use cases, such as delivery > of a software controlled toothbrush, work, without requiring the > redistribution of object files suitable for re-linking the application > on your toothbrush. > > I don't really see the FSF backing down from the point of view that the > users of free software should have the right to modify and release the > software and Apache is unlikely to change either, as they have benefited > enormously (in terms of brand at least) from letting anyone embed their > software without having to divulge the source code to users. > > Given that you can already ship products with closed binary-only java > class libraries from many sources adding one more isn't going to change > that world or hurt a user. But, we can benefit enormously from > combining our energies with Harmony to deliver a free J2SE 5 faster than > anyone thinks is possible. In theory, yes. In practice, a lot of developers on Harmony are, to put it mildly, very reserved about the prospects of working together with the FSF on anything. Whatever license the FSF would chose for its code, that would not to change. It's very hard to combine energies with people who don't want you in their midst. If you spend some time on the Harmony list archives, you'll understand what I am saying. Harmony's focus is simply fundamentally different from Classpath's: it wants to make the life of proprietary runtime developers easier, while Classpath is about making the life of free runtime developers easier. > So, given these things and my love for this project, I would really like > the FSF to allow the developers to provide Classpath under an Apache > compatible license in addition to the current licensing scheme, at least > until the FSF and the Apache Foundation resolve their own license > incompatibilities. We have no guarantees they will ever work things out > and waiting a year to find that out is waiting a year too long. The FSF will make sure that merging in code works in the one direction that matters for the FSF projects, and projects licensed under FSF's set of legal arrangements: i.e. GPLv3 will make sure that integrating such licensed code with ASLv2 is possible without doubts. That's the direction that really matters, in my opinion, as it would allow easy reuse of ASF's code, if necessary. It is up to the ASF to make suitable policies, if its membership wants those policies in the first place, to reuse other projects' copyleft code. I'd doubt ASF's membership wants that, atm, as they have spent years without any need or desire for it. That might change, as the ASF grows outside its web server niche and will need to interact with more copyleft code out there. Or it may not. It is very hard to tell. >From my experience in the past years, no ammount of external attempts to help the ASF decide one way or another are desirable, they only lead to confusion. Let Harmony be, unfold and create its own, unique niche, and once there is some code in there, that might make sense to work on together, for both GNU Classpath & Apache Harmony, then I am sure someone will make it happen. Atm, there is no such thing, though, so the best strategy is to simply patiently wait until the ASF figures out how it stands towards copyleft code, in general, what licenses it considers acceptable, and then to deal with whatever neads to be done to make things work well, if desired by the ASF at all. dalibor topic (coincidentally, one of the apache harmony's founders) > > Thanks for letting me share, > Brian (former maintainer) >
