After re-reading the ASF legal licensing policy, I'm starting this thread to formally propose that the Maven incorporate versions of Aether that are EPL without an AL dual-license. As per convention, someone can make a VOTE thread once voices have been heard here.
EPL is 'Category B'. Binary redistribution with a notice is acceptable. Maven incorporated many plexus components, and at least some of them have IP question marks hanging over them (c.f. the discussion of the plexus-utils replacement). I, therefore, don't see any real impact on the users of Maven in adopting EPL copies of Aether. To the extent that Maven is a development tool, the user impact of category B components is lighter than with something that is routinely incorporated in larger systems. To the extent, on the other hand, that Maven is embeddable, this could be a problem for someone. However, that argument would make a lot more sense if every other scrap of the ecosystem were fully-vetted category A. Someone might wonder, 'Why has Benson decided to tilt at this particular windmill?' Well, some itches of mine have led into Aether, and I'd feel fairly silly investing a lot of time and energy in Aether patches that will never see the light of day in Maven. So, I'm inclined to push the community to choose a course of action. I see three possibilities: 1) Just make the notice arrangements to use Aether under EPL. 2) Actively see if Sonatype will put the dual license back. 3) Fork the last dual version. My sense, without reading private archives, is that the community decided not to adopt the overall course of action of which (3) would be a part, so I believe that it's not a serious option at this point. (2) is possible, but my view is that the value to the community of the dual license is not worth the trouble. Thus, I'm proposing (1), but I'm certainly not going to complain if some PMC member decides to take a run at (2). A positive decision to allow incorporation of EPL Aether would give us flexibility, and if (2) happened later that would be a good thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@maven.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@maven.apache.org
