On Jun 23, 2007, at 4:17 AM, Randy Gordon wrote:
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.
Apache Jackrabbit is under the Apache License. Every single bit.
The only stuff under the Day JSR license is the JSR specification,
which consists of an interface jar and documentation under the
broadest possible terms allowed by Sun Microsystems for Java standards).
The JCR jar is intended to be part of the Java infrastructure, just
like servlets, and thus not redistributed with every application.
It is not included with Jackrabbit. The official interface jar is
not open source because Sun does not allow us to release it as such.
Any copy of Apache Jackrabbit, including anything you might create
through derivation of the Apache Jackrabbit code, is only under the
Apache License. The fact that there exists some other license out
there for some other piece of code is irrelevant. Day licensed the
Jackrabbit implementation to the ASF under the Apache contribution
agreement and the ASF licenses it to everyone under the Apache License.
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.
Please seek a lawyer's opinion. A lawyer will tell you that anything
is admissible in court, especially written communication like this one.
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.
The "fair use" exemption applies to copyrightable work, not the text
of a license to you (which is inherently unrestricted by copyright),
and in any case there is no such thing as a "reproduce one clause at
a time" limitation to fair use. You don't need an exemption to have
a public conversation about a public document offered to you as a
license. Seriously, stop making this stuff up.
.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.
Please go to <http://www.jcp.org/> and lodge your complaint. These
terms are mandated by Sun on all specification leads in order to
retain Java compatibility. Day has no choice in the matter aside
from the choice of choosing more restrictive terms. The specification
license is only one of many licenses issued by Day.
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.
Again, this applies to the Specification, not to Apache Jackrabbit.
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.
Please read up on the JCP. The TCK is approved by the expert group
and all such cases are subject to the defined exception review process.
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.
Again, it is a license to the Specification. In any case, anyone is
"subjected to the threat of litigation" simply by residing within a
given legal jurisdiction. Anybody can sue anyone in the US.
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.
And so is the software -- anything in the US is subject to US 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.
Sorry, that is absolute crap. Microsoft is sued on a regular basis
for just about every product they release. Litigation does not effect
third parties in the way that you have imagined. Besides, the company
that pays my salary (Day Software, Inc.) is a US corporation based in
Newport Beach, California, and the software that Day produces is
no more subject to "usage restrictions" than any Java JVM (which are
almost all developed outside the US).
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.
And I don't want to hear nonsense spouted by trolls for the sake
of casting FUD in our community.
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.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH APACHE JACKRABBIT. Is that clear yet?
Now, go read
http://www.day.com/maven/jsr170/jars/LICENSE.txt
and note that it was placed there on 04-Jun-2007 13:34. Day already
has answered that question because some other projects politely
asked David to do so.
This is not the "Day Software Support Community". If you have any
further questions about the JSR legal conditions, please follow the
guidance on jcp.org or contact the spec lead in private. Apache only
supplies software that is open source and redistributable under the
Apache License.
....Roy
