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FSF: New Apache License not GPL-Compatible

Posted by timothy on from the clashing-clauses dept.

__past__ writes "It seems that the XFree86 issue is not the only licensing battle currently fought in the FLOSS world: An update to the FSF's list of Free Software licenses lists the new Apache License, Version 2.0 (which has been discussed on Slashdot before) as not being GPL-compatible, due to a clause related to software patents." (Read on for more.)

__past__ continues "The new version of the Apache license will apply to all Apache projects, including the popular web server and many Java libraries like Xerces and Log4J, and making it easier to integrate Apache- and GNU-licensed code was one of the primary goals for its development. With the new license being GPL-incompatible (just like the older Apache licenses were), it is not possible to distribute programs that use libraries covered by under it and others covered by the GPL.

Apparently, the FSF does not actually consider the patent-related clauses a bad idea, let alone non-free - it is just that they impose a restriction that the GPL does not, and that makes the license automatically incompatible. It might even be that GPL Version 3 will include similar statements or at least allow them, as a message from FSF legal counsel Eben Moglen indicates. Additionally, prominent Apache hacker Roy Fielding claims that it doesn't really matter what the FSF thinks about the matter, because according to the Apache Software Foundation, derived works can just be distributed under the GPL."

17 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Is anyone else getting worried here? by Ryvar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Slightly concerned that we'll look back and say "Well, 2004 would've been the year Linux arrived in a big way . . . EXCEPT THAT WE TORE OURSELVES APART AT THE SEAMS."

    I don't mean to panic-monger or scream that the sky is falling without due cause - but this is all starting to get a bit worrying. Open Source has enough problems right now without actively helping its opponents.

    --Ryv

    1. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by orasio · · Score: 5, Interesting

      RTFA
      Nobody is fighting here.
      The FSF wrote a letter explaining license incompatibility issues in Apache license 2.0, and they even say its not a bad idea, in the listing of licenses.
      They state that the incompatibility exists, because it does, and they even imply that they might fix it themselves, so what's the problem?
      Anyway, who cares about "Linux" arriving in a big way? What is important is that free software continues to advance, and most of all, continues to be _free_, and license incompatibilities are bad in that they dont allow the cooperation between the ASF and the FSF (and XFree people), who are probably the most important developers of free software.

    2. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd like to see a clause in GPL3 that says something like "All patented contributions must be freely licensed for this work and automatically so for any legally derived works."

      Or something like that.

      Hey! Let's start a petition! Petition the FSF to include a statement to that effect in GPL3, and to release GPL3 by the end of the year.

      That'll be something to look forward to. :) I don't have the time to spawn the petition, but if I see it on Slashdot, I'll sign it.

      --
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    3. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by __past__ · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Petition the FSF to include a statement to that effect in GPL3, and to release GPL3 by the end of the year.
      I think it is pretty likely that the GPL3 will include something on patents anyway, this actually seems to be one of the two major reasons why people feel an update is neccessary (the other one being the "ASP hole", i.e. the GPL not being prepared for a web application scenario)

      It being released this year seems less likely, AFAIK it is still in pie-in-the-sky mode. Sure, you can petition them about it, but remember that the consequences of a rushed, ill-concieved GPL V.3 would be way worse than that of a delayed one. "Release early, release often" probably doesn't work that well for legal documents.

      --
      Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
    4. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by gaijin99 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      ...is because of issues like this. Idealistic licensing issues.
      Which is why the FSF says, on their page, that this isn't really a problem. Its incompatiable with the GPL, but that doesn't mean the FSF thinks its evil, or wants to see it crushed, or even considers it to be a massive hassle. Its just incomptiable, that's all.

      I think some people are overreacting here, a change like the XFree change can be a fairly serious problem, but, as the FSF points out, the Apache license change isn't worrying at all. For that matter, the front page post is misleading, if you look at the FSF compatibility page the old versions of the Apache license are also incompatiable with the GPL.

      --
      "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
    5. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by Dastardly · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "All patented contributions must be freely licensed for this work and automatically so for any legally derived works."

      As another poster said the GPL already says this. The clause that makes the Apache license incompatible is that it adds a sentence that terminates any patent rights granted by others to use the product if you exert patent rights on the product differently from what is stated in the license. Basically, this is implied in the GPL with regards to copyright. i.e. if you don't distribute your copyrighted material in the product according to the GPL, you have no right to distribute my copyrighted product. Apache makes it explicit with regard to patents.

    6. Re:Is anyone else getting worried here? by T-Ranger · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I don't understand the problem here. RMS is old enough to remember when computers were big and centerlized.

      A "computer utility" was the purpose behind the Multics project. Many mainframe hardware manufactures, in addition to small regional based outfits, opearated ASP style businesses as far back as the 1960's. ASPs are nothing new.

      Ive said it before, HTTP+HTML - markup language with forms, client side rendering, few bits going accross the wire, is conceptually exactly the same as IBM 3270 terminals worked. A 1960's time sharing computer company is conceptually exactly the same as a 2004 web bases ASP.

      They should have seen this coming.

  2. What the heck? by Chuck+Bucket · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I feel like i've been sleeping for months, all of a sudden this is all hitting the fan? What, will we all have to run some Hurd variant soon to be fully compliant?

    CB

    --
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  3. Who knows by barenaked · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I believe that you can distribute a program under the GNU General Public License and a seperate Trademark license. That is what AbiSource does with AbiWord. And I don't think it restricts the freedom of the user since it is still allowed to distribute derived works. What does not seem to be compatible with the GPL is trying put any further restrictions on the user by invoking normal copyright law. By trying to use copyright law in the Apache license to restrict the rights of recipient to use an arbitrary word in the use of their derived work doesn't seem to be compatible with the GPL. (That arbitrary word would of course be Apache in this case :) Although if you have a real trademark on that word then clause 4 and 5 could be seen as just stating that the Apache License does not grant someone the right to use the word Apache since it is a trademark. But if that is the case then you could easily take away all confusion by using something like the following instead of clauses 4 and 5: This license does not grant you the right to use any of the trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation. "Apache" is a trademark of the Apache Software Foundation and products derived from this software may not be called "Apache", nor may "Apache" appear in their name, without prior written permission of the Apache Software Foundation. I think that would make sure that the new Apache License is compatible with the GPL.

  4. No. by Svartalf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem is not one of the GPL being problematic, but rather people not thinking through what they're doing with their licensing. One of the GPL's purposes is to ensure that the code stays available to those that are interested in it as long as they are so interested. Pretty much only the GPL and LGPL do this of all the licenses out there. The other variants do this to some or no degree (MPL and APSL do some of this, but they're not as strong as the GPL is in this regard and the BSD/MIT/Artistic variants tend to not protect you from propritization of the code at all...).

    In the case of the new XFree86 license, it's a stupid play on their part to try to get more recognition (there's other ways to do this, folks- not a single player in the FOSS community is claiming that they're the ones that produced XFree86 at this point in time.) and I'm sure that the Apache license is probably another example of something not being quite thought out in the ramifications department.

    --
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  5. Another bump in the road by hoegg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many developers have strong convictions about which license they wish to use when releasing their code. However, I think that they'd often rather reuse and extend an existing library that does not use their license of choice than be burdened with re-implementing that functionality within their products or creating a new project with their license-of-choice. These kinds of incompatibilities encourage duplication of effort and discourage collaboration on many projects.

    I often wonder whether this problem could be mitigated or even solved by some creative license language. I'd like to license my software in such a way that it could be reused by projects using any of a majority of the other open source licenses. Also, I'd like to modularize it so that it could take advantage of high quality software released under otherwise incompatible licenses.

  6. Eben Moglen on Apache License, Version 2.0 by hexene · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Eben Moglen has previously stated on behalf of the FSF:

    ... FSF continues to believe that the achievement of compatibility between ASL and GPL would be of enormous benefit to the community of free software developers, allowing merger of valuable code bases currently separated by license incompatibilities. FSF is pleased to note the convergence implied by the ASL 2.0 draft. FSF will make efforts, in the development, discussion, and adoption of GPL 3 to further the process of convergence, by carefully considering the Apache Foundation's approach to the patent defense problem...

    So there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

  7. Hurray for Microsoft!!! by ZuperDee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems they said long ago in their Halloween Documents that "The lack of singular, customer-focused management has resulted in the unwillingness to compromise between the different initiatives and is evident of the management costs in the Linux process."

    In my opinion, this recent XFree86 (and now Apache) business is further proof that Microsoft was right about this. I'm not trying to bash open source as a whole--I am a big Linux fan. However, I think this problem MUST be solved if the OSS community is to move forward. We cannot go on having endless fragmentation of projects, proliferation of different (non) standards and forks and everyone-going-their-own-way. A truly usable desktop OS's bread-and-butter is its ability to have truly inter-operable (dare I say this--horizontally integrated) components.

    Just my 2 cents worth.

  8. Who cares? by neurojab · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I, for one, use plenty of non-GPL software in my day to day life. I enjoy GPL software, but I tend to release open source software under more permissive licenses, such as MIT. I also use (and write) a lot of (gasp) closed source software as well.

    For the love of Pete, there are plenty of different software licenses out there. If you don't like the terms of a given license, don't use the software. If apache changes their terms because they think it makes them less likely to be sued, good for them. The GPL isn't the One True License, it's just one of the more restrictive ones that still claims to be "free". News flash: you can run software with virtually any license as long as you agree to the conditions. If some GPL-zealot distribution decides not to include Apache because of this, that's their problem.

  9. Re:if Apache doesn't care, what's the difference? by Alan+Cox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I must disagree

    If the copyright owner says "Sure you can do that", then you can. The only reason for all the paperwork people have is to prove agreements. In most countries permission under copyright law doesn't need to be written and signed.

    Apache (as owners) said you can GPL derivative works if you want - end of discussion.

    Trademark btw works very similarly except that its easier to create a promise by inaction ("estoppel"). You can in some cases lose the ability to enforce copyrights in some situations through estoppel too, but you don't lose the copyright per se just the ability to enforce it in some situations

    Apache adding it as a footnote to their license would neaten it up but its hardly essential. Of course you then have openssl and other bits to consider. Really no standard loaded set of Apache packages has ever been GPL compatible, and except for the mysql4 problem nobody has had any problems due to it.

  10. Re:how can code under a patent ever count as "free by Spazmania · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Including, unfortunately, letting everyone use if for free for the first 15 years, then charging once it becomes a ubiquitous standard, such as happened with GIFs. [...] You can "undo" it for future releases, but whatever you already GPL'd stays that way forever.

    Licensing is a form of contract. It works the same way for patents as for copyrights. If you explicitly allow a patent to be used for free under certain conditions, you can no more undo that than you can undo specifically allowing a copyright to be used for free.

    The compression algorithm for GIFs never was offered for free in the first place. It just took the owner a long time to complain about its use.

    --
    Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
  11. It DOES matter! by Eric+Smith · · Score: 4, Interesting
    prominent Apache hacker Roy Fielding claims that it doesn't really matter what the FSF thinks about the matter, because according to the Apache Software Foundation, derived works can just be distributed under the GPL.
    It most certainly does matter.

    If I want to distribute a derived work made partially from Apache software under the Apache license version 2, and partially from Foobarco's software under the GPL version 2, the fact that Roy Fielding (or even the Apache Foudnation) is OK with it does NOT solve the problem. Distributing the derived work under the Apache license terms is a violation of the GPL, and Foobarco would have grounds for action.