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From Matt England <mengl...@mengland.net>
Subject Could Xerces-C offer a GPL license in addition to Apache?
Date Mon, 22 May 2006 16:59:15 GMT
Hello,

Summary:

Could Xerces possibly offer an additional, GPL license to their distribution?


Details:

I am a project leader for a dual-licensed, open-source project.  We offer 
one license as a GPL-based license; we also offer a commercial 
license.  References to our project:

http://www.cleversafe.org

We currently use Xerces-C/C++ for our XML interfacing/control.  However, 
the Xerces Apache license is not as compatible with our GPL license (as per 
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses>). 
Among other things, we can not distribute Xerces source in our source 
tarballs so that our users can build a complete Cleversafe system from source.

The main question:

Could Xerces possibly offer an additional, GPL license to their distribution?

To be clear: we do not propose that Xerces change their Apache license; 
rather we inquire as to the possibility that Xerces offer a GPL in addition 
to any existing licenses (including Apache).

It is my understanding that if the Xerces project (or someone/something 
associated with the Xerces project--like the Apache Foundation) owns the 
copyright to the Xerces code then it's my understanding that Xerces could 
legally offer an *additional* (and not a replacement) GPL license to their 
code if the project (and the project leaders) chose to do so.

Alas, the Apache project may have some say about this.  I'm not sure of the 
general Apache policies in this area.

Further, I want to make clear this is only a request and not a demand.  We 
will perfectly understand if Xerces is unable to grant this request.

In any case, we (Cleversafe) thank the Xerces project for providing such a 
useful product to the community.

Thanks for any help,
-Matt

ps: One can a related discussion I started at the Xerces-C developers list 
here:

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xerces-c-dev/200605.mbox/%3c6.1.2.0.2.20060522084836.044c8fb0@matts-laptop%3e


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