Hi. I sent this over three weeks ago to the human response email address at apache.org (and pinged them again a week ago), but have yet to receive a response. Would someone on his list please direct me to whom I should contact?
A synopsis is that I am requesting that Apache release suEXEC under the GPL. Notwithstanding your opinions on licensing in general, I hope that you'll agree that there are large benefits to releasing *security* software under the GPL. Thank you. Glenn Strauss --------------- Greetings. suEXEC is a program that I know well, love, and use on numerous servers. Thank you very much! To extend its usage, I have largely rewritten it and am in the process of unit testing. Among many other things, I have modularized it and have added an option (off by default) for suEXEC to safely run in a group environment (with group write privileges). I would like to make my heavily modified version available under the GNU Public License and am writing to ask for permission and advice. (I am not a lawyer and the gnu.org website indicates that the Apache Software License v1.1 is not compatible with the GPL, but does not give specific reasons.) I am hoping that the ASF will consider the merits of suEXEC as a standalone program that may be used with other webservers and will consider releasing suEXEC under the GPL. I have searched through the newsgroup at http://www.apachelabs.org/ and have turned up a number of (not-so-friendly) discussions relating to licensing (GPL, PHP, GZIP, PCRE, ...), so I have an idea where the ASF stands on this issue, but I am asking anyway. Please direct me to where I might find more information on: a) what steps I might take to release my modifications under the GPL with proper attribution to the Apache Software Foundation. b) if the Apache Software Foundation would specifically release suEXEC under the GPL or another GPL compatible license. It is a standalone program and so this would not affect anything else licensed under the Apache Software License. c) other suggestions Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Glenn Strauss PS: Yes, I have read: http://www.apache.org/foundation/preFAQ.html#licence The FAQ answer contains a mistake: there is no section "6" in the Apache Software License v1.1 * You have questions about the Apache licence. If you have sent mail about a licence issue or question, please review the online licence at the URL listed below. The gist of the licence is that you may use, modify, and/or [re]distribute the Apache software as-is. As long as you do not change the software, you may re-distribute it and call it "Apache." If you alter the software in any way, other than tailoring the configuration files or making it compilable on your platform, you may only refer to it as being based upon Apache. In all cases, altered or not, you must include attribution as described in sections 3 and 6 of the licence. Let us know if you have further questions.
