On Sat, 8 Feb 2003 08:28, Bruce Atherton wrote: > First, imports of incompatibly-licensed code are verboten but calling out > externally to Java running a main method is alright, correct?
yep - as long as the class to execute is dynamically loaded. > Second, can we optionally load incompatibly-licensed code dynamically at > runtime? So long as it is not required, and would only occur if the user > already had the package locally? For example, we might have an abstract > factory that dynamically finds whatever JAXP-compliant parser you have on > the classpath. Would it be a license violation to allow it to find an > LGPL'd parser? nope. As long as the interface is licensed appropriately then you are fine. > Third, if the above is allowed, how about optionally compiled code? Ant's > build.xml already conditionally compiles code based on the classes > available in the classpath. Would it be a license violation to have code > that imports LGPL classes but that is compiled only if the classes are on > the classpath of the user doing the build? I understand that it couldn't be > in any builds produced by Apache, of course. The decision not to use LGPL in Apache code is not due to license violations but a policy based decision handed down from the board as they dont feel it furthers Apaches aims. In many cases LGPL code can be used without license violation problems but because of the nature of java linking and the lack of clarity in LGPL wrt to javas notion of linking there is some usages that are grey areas and some I would definetly consider violations of the LGPL work. > java.* classes. But what about others? Most (all?) of them are not license violations and the board has not as yet declared that they are not furthering Apaches aims. -- Cheers, Peter Donald ---------------------------------------------------------------- Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept. 1982 ---------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
