On Friday 07 September 2007 12:43, Dan Shearer wrote:
> Thanks Kern,
>
> So in conclusion, Bacula can implement Exchange mailbox backup with full
> semantics (probably more semantics than you can cope with :-) in very
> short order via an interface to OpenChange commandline tools. Hence my
> reference to the Asterisk approach.
I don't see any licensing problem with interfacing to command line tools. The
problem is more one of development because it requires some sort of plugin or
external program interface that we don't currently have.
>
> For anything else, both Bacula and OpenChange are constrained by
> upstream libraries and cannot link against each other.
>
> There are two small doors that could be left open for the future: Bacula
> could implement "or later version" in its forthcoming modified GPL, and
> OpenChange could dual-license its work with, say, the GPL. This would be
> useful only in the case where very large bodies of trusted code used by
> either Bacula or OpenChange (or both) are replaced by functionally
> similar code under a different license, which doesn't seem likely to
> happen in the immediate future. Nevertheless, there may be value in this
> approach.
>
> I don't see any other options. Do you?
>From what you write, I'm not sure that you really understand the problem -- it
is really quite subtle and requires a lot of work because it has not really
been discussed. The problem is not with Bacula at least what is currently in
the SVN. All our code that is GPLed is now copyrighted by us -- there is no
3rd party GPLed code we are using. This now allows us to either change to
another license (not likely) or to add exceptions to the GPL. Why would we
want to add exceptions to the GPL? Simply because it does not allow linking
with OSI Open Source that is deemed incompatible with the GPL for (in my
opinion) trivial reasons. One example is OpenSSL, which is an Open Source
license as defined by OSI, but NOT compatible with GPL (neither 2 nor 3)
according to FSF. Thus, if you want to use OpenSSL in any of your code, or
if anyone uses your code AND OpenSSL, you are in a license violation.
Now, I am not immediately considering switching either to GPL (2 or later) or
to v3 because I find it too hard to understand v3, and it does not resolve
the problem with OpenSSL. My solution for Bacula will probably be: keep
GPLv2, but add an exception, which I can do because it is all our own code --
no 3rd party GPL copyrights. The exception will be something like the
following:
Bacula may be linked with any libraries permitted under the GPL,
or with any non-GPLed libraries, including OpenSSL, that are
required for its proper functioning, providing the license for said
libraries is OpenSource as defined by OSI (i.e. the source code is
freely available and can be modified).
Were you to add something similar, it would probably solve the problem. It
might be a bit harder to write since in your case, you have libraries that
would be included in other programs, and you probably don't want your code to
fall under a BSD license which is Open Source, and thus become proprietary.
I don't try to suggest such wording for you since it would require a bit of
thought, but probably you can understand the problem. If you are interested
in working on something, let me know, and I can probably come up with
something that would allow Bacula an OpenChange to work together. In any
case whatever clause I add to Bacula will be reviewed by FSFE (Free Software
Foundation Europe) before it is included to ensure there is no loop hole in
what I want to accomplish.
Best regards,
Kern
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc.
Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop.
Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser.
Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/
_______________________________________________
Bacula-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-devel
