| -----Original Message-----
| From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Aaron Mulder
| Sent: 29 October 2000 01:41
| To: Tomcat Dev List
| Cc: jBoss Developer; Java ApacheFramework
| Subject: Re: [jBoss-Dev] Re: jboss on tomcat update
|
|
| On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, Jon Stevens wrote:
| > on 10/28/2000 4:06 PM, "marc fleury" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| > > Indeed if the Avalon guy puts jBoss code in his tree and
| "contains" our work
| > > in his work then yeah.. that needs to be GPL.
| > Bingo. So, this is something that is a major problem for me.
|
| This is truly unfortunate. There are definitely ares of code that
| could be shared - that *should* be shared, such as logging, dynamic
| proxies, thread pools, and so on. It's too bad that it doesn't happen
| until a javax package is available... Particularly since those are *not*
| open source (well, under a much more restrictive license, anyway).
What has been referred to as "GPL/LGPL restrictions" are clauses that are
designed to protect the code for the community that produced it. So there
can be no legal incidence of Person P or Corporation C taking a GPL/LGPL
codebase, adding a few features and selling it as a closed source project.
It has to be open source in the same spirit that allowed the Person or
Corporation to get it in the first place. I think that is a good think.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and GPL/LGPL is eternally
vigilant. That can be a philosophical problem for some non-GPL projects.
| On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, marc fleury wrote:
| > |2.b.) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
| > |whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part
| > |thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
| parties under
| > |the terms of this License.
| >
| > again, "work that contains the Program" is code that "contains"
| physically
| > the Program (maybe thinking import in programming terms can help).
|
| What can I say? I agree that this is a reasonable interpretation.
| But I don't think it's the only interpretation, and I'm not sure it's even
| the interpretation intended by the authors. There's another section that
| specifically allows distribution of GPL and non-GPL programs on the same
| medium (Linux distributions), and that passage would be redundant if this
| passage reads as you suggest.
A distribution in GPL/LGPL terms in is the context of work produced by one
community or group. Linux distributions are not the same thing. They simply
supply many different distributions on the same CD or download.
| I think it would definitely be safe to download a set of RPMs (one
| per product) and then install them all and configure them to point to each
| other (using network protocols, standard interfaces, etc.), but I think
| it's very questionable whether you can put them in a single pre-configured
| package.
| The problem is, I'm in a situation where (to quote "Ronin"),
| "Whenever there's a doubt, there is no doubt." Whatever you say, I
| haven't heard anything that convinces me that the interpretation is clear
| - I can easily see both sides of the disagreement. I suspect the only way
| for this to ultimately be resolved is to take it to a lawyer and/or RMS.
| Any volunteers? :)
|
| Overall, the most unfortunate thing here is that I don't believe
| either party is trying to lock out code from the other. But the fact that
| the licenses are not compatible means that one group or the other has to
| change licenses in order to enable true sharing of code, which is one of
| the greatest promises of open source. And it doesn't sound like either
| party is willing.
|
| Aaron
|
|
|
