Sure, It was the glue code that uses Sphinx' API directly I was referring to, and while I am also not a lawyer, I agree that "linkage" using stdio should not be a problem.
Actually what CouchDB is then doing is to provide a stdio interface for integrating fulltextsearch engines, and supply a reference implementation of this interface using Lucene. --Søren On Sunday 23 March 2008 23:27, Jan Lehnardt wrote: > Hi, > > On Mar 23, 2008, at 17:38 , Søren Hilmer wrote: > > Hi > > > > Took a quick look at Sphinx, and noticed that it licensed under GPL > > v.2. That > > is probably a problem for integration into CouchDB, as it is not > > compatiple > > with Apache v.2. > > > > see: http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html > > I am not lawyer but from how I understand it, we do not "link" binaries > here and CouchDB is not entirely dependent on Sphinx. I know of a > few commercial GUIs to GPLed code (XTorrent, Rouge Amoeba's > programmes etc.) that use stdio to bridge GPL and non-GPL code > bases. From what I understand that is considered "legal" and we > are doing the same thing. So I think we can integrate Sphinx with > CouchDB. The code that uses the Sphinx API directly, that is the > Indexer and the Searcher would need to be under GPL though and > could not be distributed with CouchDB. > > Cheers > Jan > -- -- Søren Hilmer, M.Sc., M.Crypt. wideTrail Phone: +45 25481225 Pilevænget 41 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DK-8961 Allingåbro Web: www.widetrail.dk
