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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 13:27:19 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Sam Halliday (JIRA)" <jira@apache.org>
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Message-ID: <JIRA.12696077.1392843762729.86824.1393075639196@arcas>
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Subject: [jira] [Commented] (LEGAL-192) Why is LGPL not allowed
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    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-192?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13909366#comment-13909366 ] 

Sam Halliday commented on LEGAL-192:
------------------------------------

Thank you all for these clarifying comments.

In these last few comments, the fundamental point has been made which I paraphrase as: ACL intend for their commercial users to distribute the Shared Work under a license that is roughly the Apache License. Therefore, the LGPL is inappropriate because it has additional requirements that go above and beyond the Apache license.

Wow, I'm actually pretty surprised by this. This is certainly not how I interpret the "Software License Criteria"

.bq The license must not place restrictions on the distribution of larger works, other than to require that the covered component still complies with the conditions of its license.

Presumably the ACL consider the ambiguous "its license" to mean "the combined work's license" and not, as I interpret, "the component's license". Which is backed up by the policy decision that in order to keep it simple for redistributors, only licenses that are effectively the Apache license are allowed.

I have worked in investment banking, aerospace, defence, space, oil & gas, broadcasting, financial services and logistics. In each of these sectors, I found that licenses were recorded for each component and that - in practice - the simplest way to make bugfixes or small improvements to a library component was to contact the original author and make the changes so that it became an upstream release. If substantive improvements were to be made, but not freely released for competitive reasons, then it was best done in the Application tier (I have written several proprietary extensions to my own LGPL libraries that never needed to be released).

I should be greatly obliged if the ACL could reconsider their policy. I would be surprised if your technically savvy audience had any trouble at all in dealing with LGPL components. I have seen a wide variety of industries already go to the effort that ACL consider to be too demanding. One wonders if the policy decision is perhaps too conservative and therefore needlessly restricts the uptake of quality software, in order to oversimplify an aspect of licensing that is a non-issue.


> Why is LGPL not allowed
> -----------------------
>
>                 Key: LEGAL-192
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-192
>             Project: Legal Discuss
>          Issue Type: Question
>            Reporter: Sam Halliday
>
> According to http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html the LGPL is not allowed because
>   "The LGPL is ineligible primarily due to the restrictions it places on larger works, violating the third license criterion. Therefore, LGPL-licensed works must not be included in Apache products."
> where part three is
>   "The license must not place restrictions on the distribution of larger works, other than to require that the covered component still complies with the conditions of its license."
> But I see no conflict here with regard to distribution. The license clearly states that software which uses LGPL software can be distributed under whatever license the developer wishes:
>   http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html
> The LGPL does, however, require that any changes to the LGPL component is released as LGPL (including source code).
> I have an LGPL library and there is a desire to see it included in an Apache project. Since my project places no constraint on the distribution of the larger work, I do not see why I should have to change the license in order to comply with these rules.
> If I was using the GPL, I would see your point. But this is the LGPL and it appears to meet your objectives.


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