[jarti-announce] jaRTI changes license from LGPL to CDDL

[Tim P. <ti...@li...>]

Hello all,

As of this week, jaRTI is changing its license from the LGPL to the  
Common Developer and Distribution License (CDDL). For those of you  
not familiar with the CDDL, it was created by Sun Microsystems and is  
a derivative of the Mozilla Public License. It is also an OSI  
approved license.

== Why Switch? ==

The reason for this switch is the existence of some problems  
regarding the LGPL and "derivative works". While the LGPL is  
ambiguous on what constitutes a derivative work (where such works  
must be released as open source or not use LGPL code), the CDDL  
language talks about "modifications". As such, there is a clear  
distinction made between the two. The CDDL is seen to be more  
"commerical friendly".

The LGPL v. CDDL debate has been raging for a while now in the Java  
software development community, and after sitting down and looking at  
the issue we decided that a move to the CDDL would allow a broader  
uptake of jaRTI. In accordance with our procedures, all those who  
have contributed code to jaRTI were consulted (all both of us :P).

For more detailed information, see: http:// 
wiki.littlebluefroglabs.com/index.php?title=The_CDDL

== Who Does This Affect? ==

Nobody really. The CDDL is less restrictive than the LGPL, so the  
only people who might be affected would be those who saw we were  
using the LGPL and got turned off. If you were one of those people  
(maybe your company doesn't like LGPL software), problem solved!

I have made available a new jaRTI release (jarti-0.6.2) that contains  
the CDDL license. Previous versions of jaRTI are still available for  
download should you need them.

If anyone wants to discuss this further, just post a message on the  
forums and we'll be more than happy to discuss.

Cheers,
Tim