On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, Ole Husgaard wrote:
> Before we go to such drastic steps as changing the license,
> we should find out exactly what is the problem with the
> license we have now. I've seen many flames and much hearsay,
> and a lot of crying from both sides, but from facts and
> valid arguments I have only been able to identify three
> "problems":
>
> 1) jBoss cannot include the Tomcat code and distribute
> the combination without breaking the APL license of
> Tomcat.
> 2) Tomcat cannot include the jBoss code and distribute
> the combination without breaking the GPL license of
> jBoss.
> 3) Someone (forgot who) refuses to add the jBoss code
> to their tree because they have a problem with the
> GPL license.
I think we need to add
4) It has been debated whether it is legal for jBoss to include
packages such as JMX which are neither GPL nor "safe"
operating system code
> In all three cases my opinion is "So what?".
We're all entitled to an opinion.
> In the two first cases: These two programs can
> easily be distributed seperately.
I think the usefulness of a J2EE server is dramatically
higher than the usefulness of an EJB server. Thus I think it's
safe to say that it's a "good thing" to be able to integrate
jBoss and Tomcat. If you insist on keeping them separate, you
sacrifice performance (I don't think you could rationally claim
they're totally separate product when you distribute same-VM
integration code that deals with both directly - unless that's
yet another package), distribution (2 packages? How silly is
that?), and market (Let's see, I could have one integrated and
fully-tested product [Weblogic], or two completely separate
products that not even that authors believe can be safely run
together...)
> In the last case: Don't we already have our own
> fine CVS tree?
However, I say again that one of the fundamentals of open source
is that we should be able to share code. When someone puts together a
*really good* package Foo, everyone in the community who could benefit
from Foo should be able to use it and improve it. Isn't that what this is
all about? It does't make any sense to say "You are welcome to improve my
code, but you can't use it." I know that's not we *intend* to say, but
it's the effect of our license WRT projects licensed under a BSD
license. Shouldn't we all be able to use each other's best work as well
as our own? Would we all be better for it?
Aaron
