On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 12:17 +0100, Doug Cutting wrote: > With Lucene I started out using GPL but received numerous complaints > from folks who could not use Lucene under those terms. I did not like > excluding developers simply because they work on commercial software > products. So I first switched Lucene to LGPL. The complaints > decreased, but persisted. Then Lucene moved to Apache, and adopted > Apache's license. Since then I have not heard a single complaint. So, > in my experience, an Apache-style license is preferred to GPL my most > developers.
I think this is overstating the case a bit; people who really care about their software freedoms can't use Lucene anyway since it's in Java, and there's no usable free Java environment, or at least there hasn't been. I know a lot of people value the protections afforded by the GPL, but none of them use Java. Also, even GPL enthusiasts rarely complain that other people have chosen licenses *less* restrictive than the GPL. It would be kind of an arrogant thing to ask, normally: "Could you please place more restrictions on the use of your software?" Even if I prefer using software protected by a strong copyleft like the GPL, I am usually silent about it. > Folks can easily write auxiliary programs which > manipulate Nutch indexes and databases to alter results and rankings as > they please. Such programs would not be derived from Nutch software > and hence would not be subject to Nutch's license. I spoke about this > with Eben Moglen, and he confirmed that no software license can force > Nutch-based search engines to operate transparently. I see --- I wondered what you meant when you said that yesterday. Thanks for the explanation. > So, is it worth discouraging some developers with a GPL-like license in > order to ineffectively encourage transparency? I don't think so. There will be some situations --- where someone is using Nutch to build an enterprise knowledge-base search engine under contract, for example, or when someone is selling a shrink-wrapped search engine software. package for Intranet search --- where a copyleft such as the GPL would be more likely to result in enhancements to Nutch finding their way back into the Nutch codebase. Absent a copyleft, some people will make proprietary versions of Nutch and contribute back some of their changes. So I don't think the situation is as cut-and-dried as your description makes it out to be, but I think you can make plausible arguments for either side. > My belief is that we should disband the Nutch non-profit organization > and assign the copyright for Nutch software to the Apache Foundation, > switching Nutch's license to Apache version 2.0. Are there any > developers who object to this? Sounds like a good idea to me. I would personally prefer the GPL, but I do not feel that I have the right to request it of you. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: Sybase ASE Linux Express Edition - download now for FREE LinuxWorld Reader's Choice Award Winner for best database on Linux. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=5588&alloc_id=12065&op=click _______________________________________________ Nutch-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nutch-developers
