Ah, thanks for the interpretation Chris. As usual, a very concise explanation that hits the relevant points. I agree that it would be unwise to burden the project with LGPL code without serious consideration!
Cheers Paul On 2010-04-21, at 9:15 AM, <christopher.schm...@nokia.com> wrote: > On Apr 21, 2010, at 7:59 AM, ext Paul Spencer wrote: > >> Bart, >> >> based on my experience in other projects, it should be sufficient to include >> this in a comment at the top of XMLHttpRequest.js with a brief explanation >> of the issue and then we should be good to go. >> >> For the record, I am wondering why it is a problem to include LGPL code in >> OpenLayers if it is used as a Library (unmodified)? Roald's remark just >> seems to be that we *might* have a GPL infringement, that doesn't seem >> terribly convincing to me that there is a problem that we should be >> concerned about by including LGPL code. Can anyone elaborate on whether >> this is actually a problem, what the problem is, or if there is not, in >> actual fact, a problem with including LGPL code. > > OpenLayers is a BSD-licensed library. Thus far, it includes no code that is > not BSD licensed. By including LGPL code, we turn it from a BSD licensed > library into a BSD + LGPL library. I believe the problem with Javascript is > similar to that in Java -- it doesn't have a 'linking'-like mechanism for > which the LGPL applies (or if it does, we're certainly not using it in > OpenLayers), see: > > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.poi.devel/5900 > > The section 6 he's talking about is in the LGPL v2.1: > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html > > Which says, at the start: > > "As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work > that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions > of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided > that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and > reverse engineering for debugging such modifications." > > And a number of other interesting things *after* that, which would > significantly impact OpenLayers users if it were to apply to them. > > It is possible that LGPL licensed code may not be subject to these > restrictions in some way, but I can't understand how these restrictions > wouldn't apply to our use of libraries like XMLHttpRequest in OpenLayers, and > it seems that they would make OpenLayers usage more limited (even if it > doesn't actually make the library itself "LGPL", which I won't claim). > > Overall, I feel that this would be a step backwards for OpenLayers, and not > one I'm interested in moving towards without further discussion. > > Best Regards, > -- > Christopher Schmidt > Nokia __________________________________________ Paul Spencer Chief Technology Officer DM Solutions Group Inc http://research.dmsolutions.ca/ _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list Dev@openlayers.org http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
