On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 06:53:08PM -0800, Dalibor Topic wrote: > On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 01:52:32PM -0600, Archie Cobbs wrote: > > Conclusion being: if it's the merely legality that concerns ASF, > > then they should already be happy and this whole problem and > > discussion can go away (wouldn't that be nice :-) > > Thanks for summing it up so nicely, Archie ;) > > With the legality argument out of the way, someone should make > sure that the board ratifies the existing practice of Apache projects > shipping GPL+linking exception code.
*binaries*. AFAIK apache isn't shipping GPL+exception *code*. Hmpf. I think Cliff as VP legal can just go out and say just that. Its so obvious it hurts. > I believe I've provided the > people who care about making the use of GNU Classpath's code > possible with the requisite means to prove the legality of the > license type decisively, and I assume this will be sufficient for the > approval of the license on GNU Classpath as well. It is undeniable > that ASF has been shipping all that code for years without any harm, > so that should put an end to very vague doubts about the > legality of the GPL+licensing exception construct. > > Unless there are any objections, and noone else comes forth, > I'll sum up the discussion always good. > and make sure that Cliff brings it before license-discuss. Can't you do that yourself? (...) Establishing that it is perfectly legal to combine code licensed under the Apache License with binaries licensed under the GPL+Exception seems like a good thing and an actionable item. Establishing that it is perfectly legal to combine code licensed under the Apache License with java bytecode licensed under the GPL+Classpath Exception seems like a good thing and an actionable item. Establishing that it is perfectly legal to combine code licensed under the Apache License with source code licensed under the GPL+Exception seems like a good thing and an actionable item. Establishing that it is perfectly legal to combine code licensed under the Apache License with source code licensed under the GPL+Classpath Exception seems like a good thing and an actionable item. Establishing that the above items are both legal and acceptable practice for ASF projects seems like a good thing and an actionable items. I think the above bits might not all be exactly the same thing. The first two seem trivial, the third and fourth seem less trivial (based on the arguments presented so far), whereas the fifth as applied to the third and fourth is the "biggie" (and the one I've been looking at). I will further note there is currently a kind of "licensing bridge" in place between the Apache source code and everything licensed under the GPL (with exception or not) which is part of the C compiler or associated standard library. This bridge is formed by the C language specification and the C standard library specification. The analogy of the C lang spec is the JVM spec and the anology of the C stdlib spec is the Java TCK. Gaaah... (...) In other words "Establishing that it is acceptable practice for code in ASF projects to have optional dependencies on source code and/or binaries licensed under the GPL+Exception." "Establishing that it is acceptable practice for code in ASF projects to have non-optional dependencies on source code and/or binaries licensed under the GPL+Classpath Exception." The above two items seem like they are considerably less trivial and less easily actionable. - LSD
