Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J license broadening

[<xua...@ba...>]

Kal Ahmed wrote:
>
> Hi Xu=C3=A2n
>
> =20
>
> The reason I originally chose Apache 1.0 was that I wanted a license
> with the minimum of restrictions on who could use the code. I
> specifically did not want GPL in there as that forces a particular
> software distribution model on the licensee (i.e. they have to make
> their source available).
>
I understand that. :-)
>
> =20
>
> IANAL but I would have thought that a project under GPL should be able
> to use a library licensed under Apache as long as the library source
> was available=E2=80=A6no ?
>
Unfortunately, for practical matters, no. At least
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/ says:

    Apache License, Version 1.0 <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-1=
=2E0>

        This is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license
        with an advertising clause. This creates practical problems
        <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html> like those of the
        original BSD license, including incompatibility with the GNU GPL.=


Actually, there are at least 2 types of "use".

   1. The first type is "write your own software such that it references
      interfaces provided by the other software". This is almost always
      legal, even if the other software is not open source.
   2. The second type is "distribute your own software along with the
      other software". This is only possible if at least one of the
      licenses for each of the component projects allows this. And the
      GPL does not allow this bundling for its GPL component unless the
      GPL, or a compatible license, applies to the other software. And
      this is where the compatibility issue comes into play.

> Also, I=E2=80=99m not sure if the effect of having multiple licenses wo=
uld be
> to reduce FUD or increase it.
>
It is quite common nowadays to to be dual-licensed or multi-licensed in
general. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_license . One prominent
example is the Firefox browser, which is multi-licensed under MPL v1.1,
GPL v2, LGPL v2.1. Type "about:license" in your browser to see more
about this. ;-) I think, if a user of TM4J actually wants to join TM4J
with some other open source software, having an explicit statement "You
can use TM4J under license X" (where X is also the license of the other
open source software) actually creates the inverse of FUD, i.e.
confidence that this is allowed, legal and intended, without the need to
consult license compatibility matrices, which may not even exist for
that particular combination of licenses.

The effect for the user is that he|she can choose among the licenses.
The more licenses, the more permissive.
The effect for the developer is that he|she has to agree not only to one
license, but to all licenses. That typically means that attribution and
all the other requirements are retained as long as the project is not
forked off and the forker decides to choose a subset of the possible
licenses for his|her fork.
>
> The one other thing that is worth thinking about with a license is
> attribution =E2=80=93 I think that if others are using our stuff the on=
ly
> thing I would like to see is an acknowledgement of that =E2=80=93 that =
was one
> of the things Apache 1.0 provided.
>
Maybe the requirement for attribution is one "restriction" on the user
which makes Apache 1.0 incompatible with GPL v2. However, GPL v3 allows
for an attribution restriction.=20
>
> My preference would be for a single, permissive and unrestrictive
> license that says something like =E2=80=9CTake this stuff, do what you =
want
> with it. If it=E2=80=99s good think about giving it back. If it=E2=80=99=
s bad don=E2=80=99t
> sue us. If you use it, please acknowledge our work.=E2=80=9D
>
Then, although it retains the FUD problem of not explicitly permitting
to use another license, like multi-licensing would, maybe we should use
a 3-clause BSD license (which is single, permissive, unrestrictive, and
well known to be compatible with copyleft licenses) and add the
statement, separately from the core license but next to it, "If you use
this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product
documentation would be appreciated but is not required.", like it is
done in the bzip2 license. For example, Firefox respects such requests
and has following notices in "about:license":


      Optional Notices

    Some permissive software licenses request but do not require an
    acknowledgement of the use of their software. We are very grateful
    to the following people and projects for their contributions to this
    product:

        * The zlib <http://www.zlib.net/> compression library (Jean-loup
          Gailly, Mark Adler and team)
        * The bzip2 <http://www.bzip.org/> compression library (Julian
          Seward)
        * The libpng <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/> graphics library
          (Glenn Randers-Pehrson and team)

Note that this is even more permissive than using multi-licensing.
Because in the multi-licensing case, using TM4J in closed source
projects (i.e. when using TM4J under the original TM4J license) strongly
requires attribution without exception; attribution is optional only
when using TM4J under one of the other free software licenses. So if you
want to require attribution in general while making it optional only if
TM4J is distributed as free software under a copyleft-license (i.e.
where it is unlikely that the TM4J heritage is obscured as availability
of the combined source code is required when attribution is optional),
multi-licensing is a good and known way to achieve this.


> Cheers
>
> =20
>
> Kal
>
ciao,
Xu=C3=A2n. :-)
>
> =20
>
> *From:* Xu=C3=A2n Baldauf
> [mailto:xua...@ba...]
> *Sent:* 26 January 2008 16:02
> *To:* Kal Ahmed; tm4...@li...
> *Subject:* TM4J license broadening
>
> =20
>
> Hi Kal,
>
> I'm thinking that it would be good if TM4J could be licensed under
> additional licenses besides the Apache 1.0 license. One reason is that
> the Apache 1.0 license is GPLv2-incompatible and GPLv3-incompatible,
> limiting the linkability of TM4J with other open source software
> projects. That's why I'd like to propose that TM4J should be licensed
> under following licenses:
>
>     * the original TM4J license (which is an Apache 1.0 license)
>     * the Apache 2 license
>     * the GPL v2 license
>     * the GPL v3 license
>     * the LGPL v2.1 license
>     * the MPL v1.1 license
>
> as well as any later versions of these licenses.
>
> The rationale behind this long list of licenses is that to ensure
> linkability with other open source software projects once and forever.
> The "as well as any later versions of these licenses" is an intended
> loophole to allow for adaption to future legal developments in the
> spirit of the current licenses which we do not yet know (i.e. a GPLv4,
> an Apache 3 license, ...) by the respective license standard setting
> committees. This makes the explicit listing of some of these licenses
> unnecessary (because some of these licenses are compatible with
> others), but I'd like the minimum-license-list to be as explicit as
> possible such that any doubt cast on license compatibility does not
> create fear, uncertainty or doubt regarding license applicability.
>
>
> To achieve this license broadening, consent is needed from nearly
> every author, you being the most prominent one, that's why I start
> with you. (As time goes by, contacting authors becomes more difficult,
> that's why I better start now than later.)
> So, what do you (and others) think about this proposal?
>
>
> ciao,
> Xu=C3=A2n.
>
> (Message was resent due to tm4...@li...
> <mailto:tm4...@li...> not accepting or at least
> withholding posts from spam-thwarting e-mail-addresses.)
>