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Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:18:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Behlendorf <brian@collab.net>
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Subject: Re: LGPL and "the Hibernate clause".
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On Mon, 27 Dec 2004, Torsten Curdt wrote, quoting me:
>> 
>> However, a very close reading of the LGPL leads one to wonder if this is 
>> really the case.  It really takes a better person than myself to summarize 
>> these issues, and I can dig up the posts from Roy Fielding and others who 
>> put this more clearly, but a close reading of the LGPL and even the FSF's 
>> own "clarification" at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html *still* 
>> leaves us in a state of uncertainty over whether the commonly-accepted 
>> understanding of the LGPL actually maps to the langauge of the license 
>> itself.  The worry is that even a bare import (and more certainly an 
>> "extends" or "implements") would lead to enough taint as to consider the 
>> Apache project a derived work, falling under section 5 of the LGPL.
>
> Just curious ...what would happen when [we?] *do* consider this
> is ok and a few years later someone pops up saying "that's
> not ok" ...can this be adjusted by removing the dependency
> to the library? Or will the whole project by tainted?
> I assume removing it should suffice ...but a definite
> answer would be nice.

This was one of the questions we posed to the FSF; I'll repost the letter 
we sent to them here on this list right after I send this message.  A 
conservative read would say that removing the dependency is not enough; we 
must stop using the interfaces as well, essentially porting to another 
system.

> Maybe we could try to educated people with what they have
> to put in as an additional clause so ASF projects can
> use them? ...that way they might keep their license but
> we get the clarification we need. The projects that are
> willing to corporate with us will add the clause and
> we should be fine. ...just as hibernate did.
>
> ...or is this too simple?

I certainly hope that whatever language we're able to come to agreement 
with Hibernate on will work for other projects.

 	Brian