On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 11:32:35PM -0800, John & Kristen McNally wrote:
> > No, in their license approval process. The license is fine, it's
> > a license. I have no big issue with it.
> I think that says quite a bit. It is my understanding that the
> ASF will accept any license that contains the restrictions
> imposed by the APL.
That's not the rule that's practiced. For example, the MPL is
an accepted license and the MPL contains a copyleft.
> It seems you were attempting to add some additional restrictions
> in an attempt to emulate the GPL style license as well. This would
> appear to be an impossible task as an FSF compatible license has
> to have the restriction that the source code be distributed with
> all binaries and this would be considered an additional
> restriction which would make such a license unusable by Apache
> projects.
I wasn't attempting to emulate a GPL style license at all. I was
attempting to create a free software license that was compatible
with the GPL.
You should refer to fsf.org to read the clearly stated definition
of what free software is. The GPL attempts to enforce free software,
but the definition of free software does not require that kind of
enforcement.
> I applaud your desire to reconcile the philosophies, but I really
> don't see any way you could have succeeded.
I'm not trying to reconcile the philosophies. That's absurd. I
was trying to write a license which was *compatible* with both
philosophies.
There is a big, big difference between trying to reconcile the
philosophies and trying to come up with a license that everyone
can live with.
I doubt anyone in the ASF or FSF would have adopted my license
for their own code. I think it would not be too difficult to
create a license that both groups could link against.
> You describe the ASF members as fanatical and uncompromising.
Yes. Absolutely.
> The ASF has many members, anyone of which I think could veto
> a proposal to relax their standards.
No one was asked to relax their standards.
> You may be misinterpreting the attitude of some of the
> members which you contacted.
No, but your statement is typical of the kind of condescending,
patronizing, "you just don't get it" attitude that has been
expressed in almost every correspondence from ASF folks that
I've received.
> They probably realize the practical
> impossibility of accommodating your request.
Oh please. My request was essentially tell me what needs to
change in order to make this license acceptable for you to
link against.
The inability to respond to that request means the ASF is
driven by some kind of blind, unspecified religion rather
than any coherent view of the world.
> I am unconvinced of this great flexibility in the FSF standards.
> You must require source code to accompany any binaries.
No. Go read the definition of free software, there is no such
requirement. You're confusing the definition of free software
with the GNU GPL license.
This is all clearly stated on the fsf.org website, why does the
Apache group have no similar explanation of its policies,
positions, etc? My conclusion is that such expressions simply
do not exist--the Apache group is driven by something other
than a coherent view of licensing. "Not invented here" being
at the moment the explanation with the most predictive power.
> If you follow
> ASF philosophy (which maybe isn't so clearly expressed), they will
> declare your license APL compatible.
??! Please tell me how I go through this process. I tried for
months and months and got NOWHERE. I need a clear statement of
what is or isn't allowed in an ASF *compatible* license.
> Is the ASF in the business of
> declaring licenses "free" or "opensource"?
No, but it *is* in the business of declaring which licenses are
compatible with Apache-licensed code.
> Again maybe it isn't clearly stated, but I think the basic philosophy is
> any license which contains a subset of the restrictions imposed by the
> APL is compatible.
Again, then explain why the MPL is an acceptable license.
> use. Jon Stevens saw it as the best solution and from what I gather had
> a reasonable expectation that you were willing to come up with a license
> we could use. He told people who were building projects using the
> combination that the license problem would not be an issue; some people
> took him at his word and would have been burned.
People got burned by the ASF, not by me. I did everything I
could to resolve the issue. The answer from the ASF was that
either I place the code under an Apache license or get lost.
I was willing to modify the SPL in any way required to make
the project a success. There was no similar willingness to
negotiate on the ASF side.
You people got screwed by your own organization. Badly screwed.
> The ease with which you finally changed your license after another
> project threatened to eliminate the need for WebMacro leads me to
> question what was so difficult about the whole process prior to this
> development.
You should question it. I was always flexible, throught the
entire process. The inflexibility came from the ASF.
> There is nothing wrong with Jon requesting clarification
> from the FSF regarding using software that is dual licensed.
Sure. Or he can get clarification from a lawyer, or anybody else
he likes. When you use WebMacro you are not using it under a
dual license, you are using it under a single license. That's
a simple legal fact that he can get out of anyone with any
knowledge of software licensing--the FSF has such people, and
so does the ASF, and so do lots of other places.
Jon can bug whoever he wants. This has been explained to him
before by lots of people other than me. On lots of mailing lists,
by lots of people, over many years. So, I really don't know why
he is still asking the question--I don't know why the answers he
got a year or two ago weren't good enough.
(WebMacro used to exist under other dual licensing schemes,
I never considered the GPL to be adequate and there has always
been alternative licensing available for WebMacro).
> One of the
> reasons the ASF is uncompromising in its licensing position is its
> desire to stay clear of legal problems. I am glad to hear RMS is as
> compromising as you say
He is not *compromising* at all. What he is is friendly, helpful,
and willing to clarify exactly what his position and his
requirements are. The ASF is none of those things. If the ASF
had given me a clear definition of what constitutes an
acceptable license (such as the MPL) then I could have
quickly drafted one and we wouldn't be here.
Instead I got a bunch of "you don't get it / go away" hostility
back from all my attempts to work through it.
Justin
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