However, a very close reading of the LGPL leads one to wonder if this is really the case. It really takes a better person than myself to summarize these issues, and I can dig up the posts from Roy Fielding and others who put this more clearly, but a close reading of the LGPL and even the FSF's own "clarification" at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html *still* leaves us in a state of uncertainty over whether the commonly-accepted understanding of the LGPL actually maps to the langauge of the license itself. The worry is that even a bare import (and more certainly an "extends" or "implements") would lead to enough taint as to consider the Apache project a derived work, falling under section 5 of the LGPL.
Just curious ...what would happen when [we?] *do* consider this is ok and a few years later someone pops up saying "that's not ok" ...can this be adjusted by removing the dependency to the library? Or will the whole project by tainted? I assume removing it should suffice ...but a definite answer would be nice.
This was one of the questions we posed to the FSF; I'll repost the letter we sent to them here on this list right after I send this message. A conservative read would say that removing the dependency is not enough; we must stop using the interfaces as well, essentially porting to another system.
Maybe we could try to educated people with what they have to put in as an additional clause so ASF projects can use them? ...that way they might keep their license but we get the clarification we need. The projects that are willing to corporate with us will add the clause and we should be fine. ...just as hibernate did.
...or is this too simple?
I certainly hope that whatever language we're able to come to agreement with Hibernate on will work for other projects.
Brian
