Hi,
At Tomra we have been happily using log4j as a logging framework for our Java
applications, and we now consider using log4cxx for our commercial (closed
source) C++ applications. At first glance, that seems ok under the Apache 2
license, but when I inspected the dependencies of log4cxx I found that it
depends on the Berkeley DB (libdb4.8) which is licensed under the Sleepycat
License. This is a dual license that does not permit use in closed source
applications unless we buy a commercial Berkley DB license from Oracle. I was a
bit surprised by this finding, since it does not fit well with the permissive
Apache 2 license.
I tested log4cxx on Ubuntu 10.4, Debian package liblog4cxx10 version
0.10.0-1.1build1, and looked for dependencies with:
$ ldd /usr/lib/liblog4cxx.so.10
linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00228000)
libaprutil-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libaprutil-1.so.0 (0x00a0f000)
libdb-4.8.so => /usr/lib/libdb-4.8.so (0x00229000)
libapr-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libapr-1.so.0 (0x00f5e000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00110000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0x00634000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x00a52000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x004fb000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0x00d14000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0x00206000)
libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libcrypt.so.1 (0x0038a000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x009a2000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x0020f000)
libexpat.so.1 => /lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x003bc000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00fcb000)
I would be pleased if someone could check if I have understood the licensing
stuff right.
If I am right, it would be nice if the log4cxx dev. team could either (in
preferred order):
1) Make a release of log4cxx without the Berkeley DB dependency
2) Add some clarification in the licensing text regarding commercial
closed source usage
Best regards,
Johnny Njåstad
Tomra Systems ASA
