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]
