Yes, interesting how the "(at your option) any later version" seems to
*magically* cover all bases :)

Steve Bohlen
[email protected]
http://blog.unhandled-exceptions.com
http://twitter.com/sbohlen


On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Ayende Rahien <[email protected]> wrote:

> I don't think that we can:
> http://www.hibernate.org/license.html
>
> <http://www.hibernate.org/license.html>But if we could, I suggest saying:
> LGPL 2.1 or (at your option) any later version.
>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 3:57 PM, Stephen Bohlen <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> All:
>>
>> I'm sure licensing choice for NH is a pretty uninteresting topic <g>, but
>> I've been approached by a potential NH adopter asking if we would ever
>> consider moving from LGPLv2.1 to LGPLv3 as part of the NH3 release cycle.
>>
>> As I understand it, the (general) motivator behind creating the LGPLv3 was
>> to provide an LGPL license version that is more compatible with
>> GPLv3-licensed code (e.g., if LGPLv2.1 code is linked into GPLv3 code, there
>> are apparently some potentially contradictory clauses between the LGPLv2.1
>> and the GPLv3 that would make such a release legally conflicted).
>>
>> The user has pointed out that their legal department has expressed
>> specific concern re: the following text in section 6 of LGPLv2.1:
>>
>> "(...) you may also combine or link a 'work that uses the Library' with
>>> the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and
>>> distribute that work under terms of your choice, *provided that the
>>> terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse
>>> engineering for debugging such modifications*."
>>>
>>
>> They have expressed some concern re: the potential ambiguity of the scope
>> of what must be made available for reverse-engineering under this clause,
>> fearing that it might be interpreted as including their own (presumably
>> commercial) solution.  They have also noted that this ambiguity appears to
>> have been acknowledged by the LGPL authors as the related phrase has been
>> modified in LGPLv3 to read:
>>
>>
>>> "You may convey a Combined Work under terms of your choice that, taken
>>> together, *effectively do not restrict modification of the portions of
>>> the Library contained in the Combined Work and reverse engineering for
>>> debugging such modifications *(...)".
>>>
>>
>> I am neither a lawyer nor do I desire to become one so I cannot really
>> offer an opinion re: whether one of these clauses is more or less clear than
>> the other in any meaningful way.  But I am wondering if anyone can proffer a
>> compelling reason for us NOT to move to LGPLv3 as part of the NH3 release so
>> that it can be more easily used in concert with GPLv3-based proejcts.
>>
>> What are people's opinions on this?
>>
>> Steve Bohlen
>> [email protected]
>> http://blog.unhandled-exceptions.com
>> http://twitter.com/sbohlen
>>
>
>

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