On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 11:00 AM, Niclas Hedhman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The original author has the rights to license any part of the work, > any way he/she/it wants. So, having the Qi4j-Neo4j bridge in our > project is not a legal problem per se. > > BUT, and this is a HUGE, PAIN in the BUTT; The downstream user that > downloads Neo4J and makes it available to some user, either embedded > in the application or by providing a networked service, will have to > either; > a. Abide by the AGPL, which requires at least GPL of derived work, OR > b. Get the commercial license.
Correct. Our intent is this: a) if you write free or open source software, great, we want you to be able to use Neo gratis and under a free software license, b) if you write proprietary software, you're not unlikely to be making money off of it, and then we think it's fair to ask you to purchase a commercial license. It's not perfect, but we believe it's a good approximation of fair and ethical as well as commercially viable. YMMV. > > The only time you can use Neo4J together with a closed-source app, > without the commercial license, is that the work is an embedded > application, and the end-user is informed that "Download Neo4J, do > 1,2,3, and voila", i.e. the end-user enable everything himself. > Impractical, but possible. I actually disagree with this interpretation of the FSF's definition of "combining" and "incorporating" GPL:ed work, but let's not have this degrade into a discussion where a bunch of non-lawyers (I'm very much included in that group, as is Niclas and I think everyone else on this list) debate our own subjective and amateur view of licensing. Hopefully our choice of licensing reflects our intent as summarized above. > > In reality, this is not much different from the GigaSpaces > EntityStore, although GigaSpaces approach to 'commercial lock-in' is > slightly different, where the community edition is not clusterable. Right. > > So, to the community; > > 1. Qi4j is not going to help promote commercial products at all. Kick > everything out that is not Apache/BSD/MIT licensed. Makes perfect sense. > > 2. Qi4j allows non-Apache/BSD/MIT licensed extensions, libraries, > work to be referenced on the web site, but not hosted in the source > repository. So, by only sticking to the code in Qi4j repository I > don't risk some unwanted lock-in. +1 on that. > > 3. Qi4j follows the Apache Software Foundation rules. These > practically says; Only Apache licensed code is developed, only > Apache/BSD/MIT/++ (Category A) licensed code can be used in source > form, and only Category B licensed software can be depended on in > binary form, and Category X are not allwoed to be used in source or > binary form. See http://people.apache.org/~rubys/3party.html Check. > 4. Qi4j is more commercial friend and allows for dependencies on any > licensed software, as long as the code in our source repositories are > Apache licensed, and that the documentation clearly indicates the > consequences of using that particular part of Qi4j. Agreed as well. Should be noted that the actual Qi4j extension (the code in "entitystore-neo4j") is Apache licensed. > > There are possibly other scenarios. > > I have no strong opinion, and I was the one giving Tobias/Emil the > go-ahead. So, right now the Apache licensed entitystore-neo4j has a > dependency on org.neo4j:neo jar, which DOES NOT contain any licensing > information. So, RIGHT NOW, the legal situation is unclear, slightly > in favor of a "if you use the entitystore-neo4j you get a neo4j usage > license as well free of charge"... (I urge Neo guys to clear this up) Hmm, as in, the binary jar should include a LICENSE.txt or something like that? Had no idea we had let this slip. Lemme know the "correct" way to do that and I'll see to it immediately! Cheers, -- Emil Eifrém, CEO [EMAIL PROTECTED] Neo Technology, www.neotechnology.com Cell: +46 733 462 271 | US: 206 403 8808 _______________________________________________ qi4j-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ops4j.org/mailman/listinfo/qi4j-dev
