Mr Fielding,
I apologize for sending this directly to the list, but since I saw your reply
only on reading GMANE on the web and not in my emailed jackrabbit dev digests,
I don't know where else to send it.
My reply to your comments is:
As I said, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, just simply voicing
my concerns in an appropriate forum.
Basically, I just want Day software to incorpate into their license the
assurances you mentioned. All Day software has to do is state unconditionally
that the Apache License terms replace theirs for anyone using Apache JackRabbit
or incorporating Apache JackRabbit into their products.
I am reading the license the way I think a judge would read it. Thats because.
should there be litigation, your statements are not admissible in court, only
the actual licenses.
I did read the second clause, but I didn't include the second clause, because
the fair use exemption only allows me reproduce one clause at a time. But since
you brought it up, it is now fair game.
.2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Licensor also
grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully
paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under
any applicable copyrights or, subject to the provisions of subsection 4 below,
patent rights it may have covering the Specification to create and/or
distribute an Independent Implementation of the Specification that: (a) fully
implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and
functionality; (b) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the
Licensor Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java
interfaces, fields or methods within the Licensor Name Space other than those
required/authorized by the Specification or Specifications being implemented;
and (c) passes the Technology Compatibility Kit (including satisfying the
requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for such Specification
("Compliant Implementation"). In addition, the foregoing license is expressly
conditioned on your not acting outside its scope. No license is granted
hereunder for any other purpose (including, for example, modifying the
Specification, other than to the extent of your fair use rights, or
distributing the Specification to third parties).
a) and b) don't particularly bother me, though a definition of what constitutes
"fully implements" is a little worrying. An argument can easily be made that
even a single bug constitutes not fully implementing the specification, and
thus invalidates the license, subjecting companies (or their customers)
utilizing any software implementing the JSR-170 specification, including
Jackrabbit) to the threat pf litigation.
What I am concerned about is "c", TCK compliance and "the foregoing license is
expressly conditioned on your not acting outside its scope."
You see, in clause 3 (not reproduced here) the pass through conditions
expressly state that any subsidiary license (such as JackRabbits Apache
license) do not release users from Days softwares IP rights (which basically
means anything), so it doesn't matter what the Apache License says, it appears
it would be irrelevant in the case of a threat of litigation by Day software.
Day gets to define the TCK, so the license can be invalidated simply by their
unsupported statement that it does not pass the requirements, again, subjecting
companies (or their customers) utilizing any software implementing the JSR-170
specification, including Jackrabbit) to the threat of litigation.
More importantly, not acting outside its scope is so broad anything could
invalidate the license, again, subjecting companies (or their customers)
utilizing any software implementing the JSR-170 specification, including
Jackrabbit) to the threat of litigation.
Think this is just mere legal quibbling? JSR-170 is a content repository, in
many cases products using Jackrabbit will be holding content that is under US
federal and state laws.
Consider Kennedy Kasselbaum (HIPPA) laws, state insurance laws, and various
records that might be subject to various records retention laws.
Using products potentially subject to litigation by Day Software (and thus
endangering retention) is a potential violation of Sarbanes Oxley (or in
Europe, Basel II laws ) unless it is explicitly declared as a potential risk in
Corporate filings.
Since Day software is a Swiss company, there are also various foreign product
and nationality security/homeland defense laws that would require declarations
and usage restrictions as well.
I keep on remembering the cautionary tale of SCO's litigations and
"settlements". regarding Unix and Linux. think Jackrabbit is a wonderful
product, I don't want to see that happen here.
As I said initially, the remedy is simple. Since all Day software has to do is
issue a license that implements what they are publicly claiming they wont do,
anyways, I really can't see why they would object to doing so.
All they have to do is state that the Apache License terms unconditionally
replace theirs for anyone using Apache JackRabbit or incorporating Apache
JackRabbit into their products.
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