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Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:57:49 -0400
From: Henri Yandell <flamefew@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Henri Yandell <flamefew@gmail.com>
To: Jakarta Commons Developers List <commons-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: Re: Licensing
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On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 13:13:32 +0200, Emmanuel Bourg <smanux@lfjr.net> wrote:
> Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> > Emmanuel Bourg wrote:
> >
> >> Excluding LGPLed projects is just a political decision imho.
> >>
> >> Emmanuel Bourg
> >
> >
> > Sorry for sounding newbie about this, but what exactly are the political
> > difficulties to hosting LGPL and ASL projects on the apache.org domain.
> > Does the ASF and the FSF not get along?

To answer Richard's question (didn't see it) I think the only
political difficulty is the usual 'Free-Software' vs 'Open-Source' one
that has existed for a long time. Which links to Henning's point; we
spend tonnes of time and effort on tiny matters on legal pedantics
instead of coding.

> The concept of the LGPL is quite clear for me, it's "do whatever you
> want with your code, but if you change my LGPL code, you have to license
> your modification under the LGPL".
> 
> I agree the LGPL may be worded ambiguously with regard to Java programs,
> but for Hibernate this ambiguity is clarified in the License FAQ. One
> could say this FAQ has no legal value if it's not included in the actual
> license, but it's not true. It's a promise made on the official site,
> that's endorsed by the authors, that they will not consider this usage
> as an infringement of their copyright, and this kind of promise has a
> legal value in court, see "Promissory Estoppel" for more information.

Now we're onto the IANAL stuff and ponderings on how to get such
suggestions to a lawyer without it turning into an expensive 2 week
Q&A. Can Promissory Estoppel (whatever that is) be given just on a
website etc.

For example, I'd love to see an ASF lawyer come up with a concise
'footnote' to the LGPL that we could ask Java LGPL users to add to
their licences. Or just a 'promissory estoppel' that could be placed
there.

I agree that no one who has made their library LGPL does so for
potential Java virality.

Hen

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