On 8/16/06, Dave Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 8/16/06, Allen Gilliland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The first thing I would like to know is what the final apache stance is
> on our use of Hibernate. Maybe it's just me, but it hasn't been totally
> clear on what exactly our options are. I know that apache doesn't like
> LGPL libraries, but I thought at some point there was some discussion
> that we may be able to keep Hibernate in some situations. i.e. if we
> were using hibernate through an open api like JPA or if there was some
> form of alternative also available. In any case, I would like to get a
> firm statement from apache about our options before I make any decisions
> about what to do. can someone provide an official stance from apache?
Yes. I would like that too. I've never seen the official Apache policy
on projects shipping or depending on LGPL. Does one exist yet?
I added Cliff Scmidt to the CC list.
http://people.apache.org/~cliffs/3party.html is still as official as
it gets - it's 98% official though. We (everyone at the ASF) are
leaping in and using it. Cliff has some changes to make before
releasing it to www.apache, but they're not ground breaking changes as
far as I understand.
LGPL policy:
* We may not distribute LGPL licensed works.
* We can depend on LGPL licensed works, provided the user is aware of
this before using our product (forcing them to go download it from the
original source being the simplest and best way).
The first is because LGPL is still the most weakly worded of the soft
copyleft licenses. The other main ones can be distributed, but LGPL
cannot.
The second makes clearer sense if you consider the LGPL editor that
Roller used to ship with. After installing that as a blog server, the
Roller instance is still distributing that editor out to everyone and
so the owners of the blog server are now distributing LGPL. This may
or may not be something they are comfortable with.
For a solely back-end dependency like Hibernate, distribution is only
going to be when somebody ships an enhanced version of Roller - which
isn't as unlikely as it sounds given that Roller seems to be doing
well in the enterprise in-house market.
So officially - the choice for Apache Roller is between shipping
without a persistence layer and having the user add it later; and
finding a new persistence API.
As it's a new policy, there's always a chance that the former for the
long term would incite community-wide unhappiness - it's hard to get a
consensus for what the consensus is on soft-copyleft licenses.
Hen
