Hi, would FOSS Exception similar to http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/ fix the relicensing problem?
If so, I will propose Oracle developers to add the FOSS Exception to Berkeley DB licensing. The MySQL FOSS Exception doesn't include 4-clause BSD, so it still might bar some software to create derivative works with Berkeley DB, but the list would be considerably shorter. Or they will need to add the 4-clause BSD license to the exception list. O. On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Ondřej Surý <ond...@sury.org> wrote: > Hi, > > Florian Weimer has correctly pointed out that Oracle has decided to change > the BDB 6.0 license to AGPLv3 ( > https://oss.oracle.com/pipermail/bdb/2013-June/000056.html). This hasn't > been reflected in release tarball (probably by mistake), but since the > AGPLv3 is not very friendly to downstream projects, we (as the Debian > project) need to take a decision. > > My opinion is that this Oracle move just sent the Berkeley DB to oblivion, > and Berkeley DB will be less and less used (or replaced by something else). > > What we can do right now (more can apply): > [ ] Keep db5.3 for jessie > [ ] Keep db5.3 for jessie+ > [ ] Keep db5.3 forever > [ ] Suck it and relicense the downstream software as appropriate > [ ] Block db6.0 and higher from entering Debian > [ ] Remove Berkeley DB support from jessie+ > [ ] Remove Berkeley DB support from jessie++ > [ ] Replace Berkeley DB with free alternative [*] > [ ] Somebody writes a BDB-compatible wrapper around the free alternative(s) > > As far as I am aware the most prominent users[1][2][3] of Berkeley DB are > moving away from the library anyway, so this might not be a big deal after > all. > > 1. openldap has mdb > 2. cyrus-imapd has skiplist > 3. subversion has moved to fsfs long time ago > > I am attaching list of affected software generated by: > > dak rm -Rn -s unstable db-defaults db5.1 db5.3 > db-depends > < db-depends grep : | grep -Ev "^($| |#|Dependency problem found.|Will > remove the following packages from unstable:|Maintainer:)" | sed -e > "s/\\[.*\\]//" | cut -f 1 -d: | sort -u > package.list > # chroot to unstable system > <package.list dd-list -i > affected.list > > * - f.e. kyotocabinet is GPL with FOSS and Linking exception ( > http://ftp-master.metadata.debian.org/changelogs/main/k/kyotocabinet/unstable_copyright > ) > > kyotocabinet is a sister of tokyocabinet: > http://tokyocabinet.sourceforge.net/benchmark.pdf > or > http://www.dmo.ca/blog/benchmarking-hash-databases-on-large-data/ > > Ondrej > -- > Ondřej Surý <ond...@sury.org> > -- Ondřej Surý <ond...@sury.org>
