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An anonymous reader writes "A project called OpenChange is working to develop an open source client library for Microsoft Exchange. They are heavily dependent on Samba code for the underlying protocol support and have been forced to move to GPLv3 once Samba moved. This has gotten in the way of legally adding support to other software such as KDE, which is unwilling or unable to go GPLv3." It sounds like all the developers involved expect the GPLv2/GPLv3 issues to be resolved in time.

Update: 10/01 12:26 GMT by KD : Dan Shearer, of OpenChange and the Samba Team, wrote in to correct the anonymous submitter's mistaken implication that OpenChange moved reluctantly to GPLv3. Read on for his actual position.

I'm Dan Shearer of both the OpenChange project and the Samba Team, and I wrote the message on bacula-devel linked by anonymous' original post. I would like to correct the unfortunate impression given by anonymous that OpenChange has been reluctantly forced to change licenses because Samba has moved to the GPLv3. In fact, OpenChange see that the GPLv3 is entirely appropriate for Samba, and OpenChange plans to use the GPLv3 even when not necessarily required to do so by upstream licenses. The move to GPLv3 was one of two license changes we plan to announce on openchange.org in the next few days.

The specific issue highlighted in the post is not a general GPLv3/v2 incompatibility. Code which is licensed under the GPLv2 but no later version is incompatible with the GPLv3. There are a few significant examples of GPLv2-only code, including KDE as mentioned and also the Linux kernel, which cannot be linked to GPLv3 code. That is a matter of policy for those few projects. We would of course be delighted to be able to use their code as appropriate if they change their policy at some point, but we have no complaint if they do not choose to do so. The GPL offers many choices and this is one of them.

Most GPLv2 code includes the words "or any later version", which is a statement of trust by the licensor in the people who create those later versions. The GPLv3 was created as a community effort, a very large and representative community effort, and in that sense many people think that this trust has been maintained. Including the Samba Team and the OpenChange project. If you are unsure about this, go to archive.org and search for "Eben Moglen 2007", which will give you a choice of media and plain text for the summary talk in Edinburgh a day or two before the GPLv3 was released. We respect that there are different opinions on licensing including some who do not like the GPLv3, however it is indisputable that the GPLv3 is very much a community production rather than a statement from the FSF. That fact of community evolution supports the idea that the trust implied by "or any later version" has been maintained.

It might also be helpful to reflect on the history of OpenChange. OpenChange is an independent work from a team led by Julien Kerihuel built on the research and tools produced by the Samba Team. OpenChange has been the direct beneficiary of a lot of effort contributed by the Samba Team over the last four years. We strongly support Samba's use of the GPLv3 as being an appropriate response to the current legal environment.

The thread the anonymous poster linked to was in response to Kern Sibbald of the excellent Bacula project. Kern has his particular views, and we respect those views, but they are by no means general. (Readers may also like to read the entire thread on bacula-devel.) When we look at the numbers at Palamida we find many thousands of projects that OpenChange can link against, besides all the others with compatible licenses such as the Apache license. We don't feel very lonely :-)