Re: [Freemind-developer] Usage of non-GPL libraries/code [Re: Latex]

[Dan P. <dan...@gm...>]

Hello all,

my response to Eric's post and to the previous discussion lead in the thread
Latex follows. The response to an extend repeats what Eric has said.

I do not want to change the license of my contributions to FreeMind. IMO no
further action is needed as regards linking to Apache-licensed libraries.
Please consider the following.

1. Whether linking to Apache-licensed modules presents a legal risk is
unclear.

http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html

2. There is little real legal risk of linking anyway.

3. GNU GPL V3 is planned to be compatible with Apache license. All FreeMind
code is licensed under GNU GPL V2 _or later_.

http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms-why.html

Best regards,
Dan


On 6/10/07, Eric Lavarde <Er...@la...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I jump into the discussion.
>
> Reading [1], you'll see that the incompatibility of Apache 2.0 is
> limited to patent issues. As neither the library, nor FreeMind have any
> patents implicated, I think that we're pretty on the safe side, unless
> someone discovers that we (or the library) infringes certain patents,
> but our issues would be independent from the Apache vs. GPL discussion.
>
> The fact that HotEqn doesn't provide any source code is more of an
> issue, this is definitely against the GPL philosophy. I don't think it's
> an issue to have code linked against the library but distributed without
> the library (for the user to download), though.
>
> I don't see either an issue, for similar reasons, to have a Plugins
> tracker. Decision to introduce plugins into the main FreeMind
> distribution would be linked among other aspects to the License.
>
> Eric
>
> [1]<http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html>
> [2]<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html>
>