On Thu, 30 Dec 2004, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
b) Is there a better clarification we could suggest to Hibernate and others like them who want to use the LGPL with a clarification?
Jason and I came up with language that seems reasonable; I believe it's worth putting in front of the Hibernate developers and asking them what they think:
Any incorporation of Hibernate under or within another application under any other license will not cause the LGPL to apply to that other application. Modifications to Hibernate must also fall under the LGPL. Compilation of the other application and Hibernate (together or separately) is not considered a modification.
Short, snappy, punchy, I like it :)
Some questions on the Modifications line. Firstly, is the 'also' needed? Seems unnecessary for the text.
You're right, it is unnecessary and can be removed. Might be better to add a "however" to clarify, and change "incorporate" to "use and/or redistribution", too. V1.1:
Any use and/or redistribution of Hibernate within another application under any other license will not cause the LGPL to apply to that other application. Modifications to Hibernate, however, must fall under the LGPL. Compilation of the other application and Hibernate (together or separately) is not considered a modification.
However, it does imply that if you modify Hibernate and do not distribute, you have to LGPL it, whereas Hibernate's clause specifies that you have to modify+distribute to need to apply LGPL.
Does my rework make it clearer? I actually think the phrasing you refer to in their clause is an error; the LGPL should apply to Hibernate whether it's redistributed in modified or unmodified form. But in either case, the LGPL should not affect the license of the work that links to it.
Otherwise, I think everything in Hibernate's clause is still covered by the above. One bit I like is that it can be templated:
For Project X under Licence L: Any incorporation of X under or within another application under any other license will not cause the L to apply to that other application. Modifications to X must also fall under the L. Compilation of the other application and X (together or separately) is not considered a modification.
Right.
I'm not sure if there are other Licences that we'd want to try and apply it to, but I like that it doesn't discuss dynamic-linking, imports, extension etc.
I am pretty sure there are few other licenses that will require this kind of thing.
Brian
