Ceki Gülcü wrote:
At 07:21 12.02.2003 -0500, Sam Ruby wrote:LGPL has special rules for 'link'. What exactly is the concept of a 'link' in Java? If A imports B and A and B are not in the same Java package (but perhaps share some similar names in the first three qualifiers) are they in the same 'library' or not?Indeed, reading the LGPL does not give a clear answer. Thank you for pointing out the heart of the issue.
Java has been around for some time, and you would think that this would some clarification of how these concepts map to Java would have been provided. Can we read something into the fact that it has not?If you chose to. However, if would be better not to read anything into that fact.
See below.
I am aware of a number of people, including FSF board members, who have tried to work with the FSF on this and a number of broader issues, and furthermore that their work is continuing.More importantly would you be willing to risk the value of your reputation and some important software assets on the chance that a jury of 12 people would agree with what we decided to assign to the meaning of terms used in the LGPL license?It depends on the formulation of the license. In the case of LGPL, I would certainly not want to take that risk.
It is not up to the ASF to define what the FSF means when they say 'link' and 'library' in the context on Java.No, it is not up to the ASF. However, has the ASF attempted to clarify the matter with the FSF? Why not ask the FSF if importing java classes is considered as "derivative work" or simply as "work that uses the library"?
However much I would wish otherwise, I must confess that I am not hopeful that this will be resolved soon.
People are free to license their works under any number of licenses. There are open source licenses which define derivative works more clearly. An example:
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html
The ASF is comfortable with dependencies on code under the MPL license.
In the absence of a clear response from the FSF, there is no doubt that it is safer to shy away from LGPLed code.
I would encourage general discussion of this on [EMAIL PROTECTED] This topic has a much wider applicability than Jakarta.I urge all Apache members and committers to carefully follow licensing related discussions. The matter is too important to be blindly deferred to the wisdom of the board. Think a little on yourself. Read the BSD license. Understand its sprit. Read the Apache license. See how much or how little it differs.
Sure.- Sam Ruby-- Ceki --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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