On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 7:25 PM Niclas Hedhman <nic...@hedhman.org> wrote:
> Well, for the End User, he/she can not use Tinkerpop+Neo4j without > complying with GPL/AGPL. > If Tinkerpop doesn't require Neo4j and still be useful, then that should be > Ok. > If Neo4j is essential to Tinkerpop, i.e. not useful without Neo4j, then > this is simply not acceptable. > IMO, Tinkerpop is useful without neo4j. It is just nice to have one of the largest graph database vendors supported. > > Apache Zest has a similar situation. Neo Technology wrote and licensed an > "Qi4j Entity Store for Neo4j" as Apache License v2.0. And for Zest is not > an issue, since there is ~10 entity stores to choose from. > > > But may I suggest the other way around?? Can't Neo4j have a Tinkerpop > module at their end, which Tinkerpop advertise to be available for those > that can live with the GPL/AGPL limitations? That would make this a > non-issue, and IIUIC fits well within the conceptuals of Tinkerpop. > AIUI, this would be a viable option. > > > Cheers > Niclas > > On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:33 PM, Marko Rodriguez <okramma...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > TinkerPop (http://tinkerpop.incubator.apache.org/), prior to being an > > Apache project, provided a tinkerpop-neo4j adaptor with each release. > > TinkerPop sees Neo4j as the "reference OLTP implementation" of TinkerPop. > > With TinkerPop's migration to the Apache Software Foundation, TinkerPop > > 3.0.0.M8-incubating (just released) had to gut Neo4j because Neo4j is > > licensed GPL/AGPL. > > > > Neo4j wants to continue to be TinkerPop's reference implementation. As > > such, Neo4j is interested in providing an Apache2 licensed version of > their > > neo4j-api <dependency/>. They want to do this not only for TinkerPop, but > > also for other Apache projects that want to depend on Neo4j (or have in > the > > past and gutted it for licensing reasons -- e.g. Apache Camel). However, > > before they go down this road of altering their product modules and > > licenses, they want to make sure their proposed module will be accepted > as > > something that Apache projects can legally <depend/> on. > > > > If anyone is an expert in the area of licensing (or has past experience > > with a similar situation), can you please review the following proposal. > > > > * Neo4j would re-license their "neo4j-api" module as Apache2. > > * This dependency would NOT depend on anything GPL/AGPL. > > * Neo4j would then have their neo4j-kernal module <depend/> on the > Apache2 > > neo4j-api module. > > * Thus, no transitive dependency and therefore, no viral > GPL/APGL. > > * TinkerPop (or any Apache2 projects) would then ONLY depend on > neo4j-api. > > * For testing, TinkerPop's pom.xml would have some sort of > > <config/> stating where Neo4j is. > > * Thus, the tester would be responsible for manually downloading > > Neo4j. > > * Some reflection based model would be used to instantiate the > > connection (or some META-INF/services-style model). > > * TinkerPop users would also, like testers, be responsible for manually > > downloading Neo4j. > > > > In short, TinkerPop would depend on an Apache2 licensed neo4j-api. Some > > manual downloads from testers/users would be required to use the > > tinkerpop-neo4j component with a Neo4j database. > > > > Is this a correct way forward for Neo4j? > > > > Thank you very much for your time, > > Marko. > > > > http://markorodriguez.com > > > > > > > -- > Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer > http://zest.apache.org/qi4j <http://www.qi4j.org> - New Energy for Java >
