Re: [htdig-dev] Licenses..

[Neal R. <ne...@ri...>]

Robert,

  Thanks for your efforts here!  We have little contact from the other
Linux distros.... which tells me that Debian is more on-the-ball on
License audits of code that is included.

> It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is compatible
> with GPL, but not LGPL.

  Yep.

> It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base.  There, Neal
> negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to distribute
> our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the
> bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig.  If it's unbundled,
> it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license.
>
> Neal and Geoff, please chime in if you have anything to add.

[This next part applies only to HtDig 3.2.x]

  Note that for 3.2 the HtDig license is LGPL.

  If a 'LGPLed 3.2 HtDig + custom DBD with custom Sleepycat License'
causes you license indigestion for Debian..... feel free to make the whole
thing GPL and remove the special Sleepycat/BDB License Exception in your
source package.

  If you do this, we would kindly ask that any patches you submit to us
for HtDig 3.2.x be LGPLed by you so we can include them in the stock HtDig
3.2.x tree.

  I know this is a bit wierd, but it's legit since the HtDig group is
allowed by copyright law (as copyright holders of our code) to interpret
the LGPL as we see fit.

  And Sleeycat did the same by making a HtDig specific exception to their
license to allow us to move to the LGPL and still use BDB.

  FYI:  It looks like for HtDig 4.0 we MAY be abandoning BDB, and be
replacing it with an LGPL'd Lucene/CLucene.. so the wierd licensing issue
goes away.

Thanks again.

Neal Richter
Knowledgebase Developer
RightNow Technologies, Inc.
Customer Service for Every Web Site
Office: 406-522-1485