Re: Apache v. GPL
On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, W. Yip wrote: My final question is this. When literature mentions 'compatibility', do they refer to compatibility of licenses in a situation involving: According to RMS the _only_ way to become compatible to the GPL is to allow for conversion to the GPL. Any restriction which disallows conversion to pure unmodified GPL (incl. additional acknowledge requirements) lead to incompatibility with the GPL. GPL is in the above interpretation _very_ intolerant and restrictive. Regards, -- martin // Martin Konold, Stauffenbergstr. 107, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany // KDE: The most advanced GUI for a reliable OS.
Re: Apache v. GPL
W. Yip writes: Hi. I have some trouble grasping why Apache license is incompatible with the GPL. Is it because of the naming restrictions in Apache constituting additional restrictions that are prohibited by the GPL? Or is it because of: Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following *acknowledgment: *"This product includes software developed by the Apache Group *for use in the Apache HTTP server project (http://www.apache.org/)." The above sounds like the obnoxious advert clause in the dreaded 'old-BSD'. Then again, how does an advertisement clause such as the above amount to incompatibility with GPL? The GPL requires people relying on its permissions to grant the same permissions to others in order to distribute code. The GPL gives you permission to distribute with no advertising clause, so if you distribute with a requirement to retain an advertising clause, you have not successfully cause[d] 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. and you may also be in trouble because [y]ou may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. The conventional view on GPL compatibility, which has been disputed sometimes, is that a license must be strictly less restrictive than the GPL in every regard, or else allow sublicensing under the GPL, in order to be GPL-compatible. I shouldn't say "or else" -- because of the passages quoted above, we can argue that "strictly less restrictive than the GPL in every regard" _implies_ allowing sublicensing or dual licensing under the GPL. And that is what the GPL expects. My final question is this. When literature mentions 'compatibility', do they refer to compatibility of licenses in a situation involving: (i) dual licensing (eg. Perl under both Artistic and GPL); or It seems unlikely that a license would be successful in the free software world if it attempted to prohibit dual licensing, so no. (ii) intermixing of code released under different licenses. Yes -- as Jim Dennis said yesterday, "the ability to merge two projects" into one, or to excerpt code from one project and re-use it in another, releasing the end result to the public as a free software program. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | And do not say, I will study when I Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | have leisure; for perhaps you will down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | not have leisure. -- Pirke Avot 2:5
Re: Apache v. GPL
"W. Yip" wrote: Is it because of the naming restrictions in Apache constituting additional restrictions that are prohibited by the GPL? No, the GPL can survive that. Or is it because of: Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following *acknowledgment: *"This product includes software developed by the Apache Group *for use in the Apache HTTP server project (http://www.apache.org/)." The above sounds like the obnoxious advert clause in the dreaded 'old-BSD'. Yes, and it is in essence the same restriction. Then again, how does an advertisement clause such as the above amount to incompatibility with GPL? Clause 6 says: # You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise # of the rights granted herein. Consider a program X that derives from Apache/old-BSD licensed code A and GNU licensed code G. Using G requires that X be distributed with a license no more restrictive than the GPL; in other words, it may not impose restrictions that the GPL does not impose. Using A imposes the restriction that every copy of X must contain the ad from A. These requirements being contradictory, X may not be distributed at all. My final question is this. When literature mentions 'compatibility', do they refer to compatibility of licenses in a situation involving: (i) dual licensing (eg. Perl under both Artistic and GPL); or (ii) intermixing of code released under different licenses. (ii). -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.-- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)
Re: Apache v. GPL
Seth David Schoen wrote: It seems unlikely that a license would be successful in the free software world if it attempted to prohibit dual licensing, so no. Indeed, it would be nonsense. Nobody but the author can license code under any particular license, so saying "I license my code under license X and no other" is a promise to one's self alone. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.-- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)
Re: Apache v. GPL
I should point out that V1.1 of the Apache licence has followed the model of new-BSD; see http://www.apache.org/LICENSE. Is this new licence now GPL-compatible? -- #kenP-)} Ken Coarhttp://Golux.Com/coar/ Apache Software Foundation http://www.apache.org/ "Apache Server for Dummies" http://Apache-Server.Com/ "Apache Server Unleashed" http://ApacheUnleashed.Com/
Re: Apache v. GPL
On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Rodent of Unusual Size wrote: I should point out that V1.1 of the Apache licence has followed the model of new-BSD; see http://www.apache.org/LICENSE. Note that this new license has only been applied to the current tree, both 1.3 branch and 2.0 branch; apache 1.3.12 and previous releases are all under the older license. Also, the Jakarta and XML Apache projects have been using this new license since their initial releases. I'm not sure if mod_perl has picked this up yet, nor mod_jserv. Is this new licence now GPL-compatible? When I asked Stallman he said he found it much less troublesome than the older one, but didn't issue an official declaration or anything. Brian
Re: Apache v. GPL
John Cowan writes: Seth David Schoen wrote: It seems unlikely that a license would be successful in the free software world if it attempted to prohibit dual licensing, so no. Indeed, it would be nonsense. Nobody but the author can license code under any particular license, so saying "I license my code under license X and no other" is a promise to one's self alone. I'm thinking of something like this: If the copyright holder of this package has granted permission to anyone to redistribute it under the copyright laws on any terms other than these, or by any instrument other than this license, then this permission is void, and you have no right under this license to distribute the software. In other words, a license could get so offended when an author dual-licensed some code that it cancels itself. :-) So it should be possible to have a license which is resistent to use in dual licensing situations. The author of the licensed code wouldn't be prohibited from granting the permissions; instead, one of the permission grants, by its own terms, might be inoperative. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | And do not say, I will study when I Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | have leisure; for perhaps you will down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | not have leisure. -- Pirke Avot 2:5
Re: Apache v. GPL
G'day all. W. Yip writes: Then again, how does an advertisement clause such as the above amount to incompatibility with GPL? On Tue, Apr 11, 2000 at 09:13:21AM -0700, Seth David Schoen wrote: The GPL requires people relying on its permissions to grant the same permissions to others in order to distribute code. Of course the copyright holder does not rely on any permissions in order to distribute their own code. If I create GPL'd code which I attempt to combine with pre-existing Apache-licensed code, I am not bound by the GPL on my own code. That suggests that for me the two licenses are "compatible", doesn't it? I may have effectively stopped others from redistributing my code, of course, but that's my fault for choosing an "incompatible" licence. Cheers, Andrew Bromage
