David (and others)...
To summarize the pitfalls from the point of view of Java:
1) GPL code can't import non approved licenses, nor be imported by non approved
licenses (with the
exception of the underlying operating system, JDK, or major OS-like interface -
HTTPServlet etc).
2) GPL code can be modified by a business or org and kept secret, provided the code is
not
distributed out again.
3) Modifications to GPL code (like other OSS licenses) must be republished. The
difference is that
the GPL hints that you should include the source in the binary distrbution or provide
a minimal
cost distro of source by snail mail (I am *not* going to do that!!!). Having to URLs
- one for
src, one for binary, is not enough, but very common.
4) GPL likes Xerces because Xerces implements a W3C interface (approved). The linking
of the
Xerces classes is achieved through a factory that *could* have multiple
implementations (somthing
the GPL likes very much). If you import any org.apache.* class (and other utilities
under many
other OSI approved licenses) you are in breach of GPL.
5) Whole situation sucks. Mozilla & Apache licenses (plus 20 others) are first class
OSS
licenses. LGPL is better for toolkits (see the GPL license for commentary on glibc)
than GPL.
The DB people you are dealing with will sometime soon change their license as it's
unusable for
toolkits. This happend to JBoss and others, but sometimes there is great resistance
to this news.
Avalon
======
This leads us neatly on to Avalon, If Avalon's interfaces were declared "Operating
system", then
they would be granted the same excepmtion as JDK classes would (they are a commercial
license).
People are going to object here, citing examples like not file system implemented in
Avalon....
It is my opinion that OS is where we should head....
Regards,
- Paul H
____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk
or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
