Re: What about LGPL? Re: Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL

[Andrew C. Oliver]

My appologies.  I was confused between ASL and AFL.  I interperated the 
latter to be a misnomer
referring to the first.  It is currently the position of the Apache 
Software Foundation that the terms of
the LGPL in the case of Java might cause section 6 of that license to 
bind the ASL licensed software.
(and only in the case of Java)

-Andy

Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:

The AFL has the same effect with the LGPL as it does with the GPL.  I
contend it is also fully compatible.  All are free licenses.  

The issue has nothing to do with linking.  

/Larry Rosen

 

-----Original Message-----
From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew C. Oliver
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 5:12 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: What about LGPL? Re: Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL
Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
   

Richard,

Today you finally gave public reasons for your assertion 
     

that the AFL 
   

is incompatible with the GPL.  Because you are simply wrong 
     

on the law 
   

and wrong-headed on a matter of principle, I must file this public 
response.
     

So I think I understand the controvery regarding GPL and why 
GPL and ASL 
(aka AFL) don't work together.  What about LGPL and ASL in 
the situation 
of Java?  Apache has a long standing ban on LGPL being used in Java 
projects and I want to know if its justified.

I asked if Eben Moglen's comments in slashdot on the subject were 
sufficient to lift the ban and Roy Fielding responded:

"
No.  What the FSF needs to say is that inclusion of the 
external interface names (methods, filenames, imports, etc.) 
defined by an LGPL jar file, so that a non-LGPL jar can make 
calls to the LGPL jar's implementation, does not cause the 
including work to be derived from the LGPL work even though 
java uses late-binding by name (requiring that names be 
copied into the derived executable), and thus does not (in 
and of itself) cause the package as a whole to be restricted 
to distribution as (L)GPL or as open source per section 6 of 
the LGPL. "

Most authors of Java software using the LGPL license intend to allow 
linking (basically the use of the java "import" of classes in 
their jar 
file).  Who is right?  Apache with their insistance that the LGPL is 
"viral" for Java software or the masses who think LGPLing their code 
causes modifiers to contribute but linking/use to be 
uninhibited even to 
proprietary software?  (where the term "link" is not wholely 
appropriate 
for Java, I interperate it to mean including a jar in the 
classpath at 
compile-time and runtime and having import statement naming classes 
inside of a jar)

On a personal note, clearing this up would help me greatly as I would 
like to use Trove4J (http://trove4j.sourceforge.net/) in the Apache 
project I founded (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi) instead of our own 
collection classes.  Secondly, I am considering releasing an upcoming 
Java codebase in LGPL or GPL, and while I understand the full 
ramifications of GPL, I do not feel I fully understand the 
ramifications 
of LGPL with regards to this issue.

I would greatly appreciate if Mr. Stallman and Mr. Rosen 
could provide a 
definitive answer on this.

Thank you,

Andrew C. Oliver

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