You know that ASF jars aren't 'freely' distributable, right? The license
specifies some conditions on binary distribution.
All the open source sub-communities have various conventions about how to manage the legal tangles around IPR. We, the foundation, currently have a adopted a framework that strives to assure that commercial interests have a low barrier to adoption - for our stuff. Achieving that requires that we take care that there is the right level of compatibility between the licenses of the various things we depend upon and distributed.
I believe we ended up in this place because a number of us had personal experiences where systems we were trying to build could not be deployed without resolving these issues. We used the software, we needed these problems resolved.
Other communities have made the choice to leave the issue of assuring compatibility to the users. Some users can resolve these issues by ignoring them, or taking a wait and see attitude, or arguing that they are too low profile to get noticed, or taking shelter inside a different bubble where the rules are strictly enforced (like the gnu bubble, or the microsoft bubble), or getting a team of lawyers to negotiate the one off licenses required. Sourceforge, CPAN, and public libraries take this - 'not my problem' approach.
Are you arguing that the ASF should stop striving to keep licenses compatible?
- ben
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