I sent an email to the db4o team to see what they think. When I get a response back from them we should have more answers. At that point it will either be a no on their end or we will have specific items to discuss.
Scott On Friday, March 25, 2011, Stefan Bodewig <bode...@apache.org> wrote: > On 2011-03-25, Prescott Nasser wrote: > >> Stefan, how do you read their licensing: > >> http://www.db4o.com/about/company/legalpolicies/docl.aspx > >> By your reading is it possible to include this in our repo to keep >> everything together? or would this have to be outside the ASF? > > The usual IANAL disclaimer applies and we could ask for legal clearance > if we absolutely think we need it. > > From a cursory glance I don't think the policy applies to our use-case > at all. > > ,---- > | 1. Subject > | > | "Software" means the current version of the db4o database engine > | software and all patches, bug fixes, error corrections and future > | versions. > `---- > > AFAIU Sharpen is not part of the database engine. > > and in addition I'm not sure that a fork of the codebase is in line with > what they'd consider a derivative work. > > Even if it would apply, the license to the original code base was > non-transferable and you'd only get the right to sublicense the original > code base under the rules of the GPL (section 2b - in addition there is > no software at all prior to accepting the agreement). I don't see how > this could work. > > If you really feel that forking Sharpen is the best way to move forward > - not my call to make - then forking the GPLed sources into a project > that is using the GPL itself seems to be the only choice that was > legally sane. > > Stefan >