Slashdot Mirror
Apache says ASL2.0 is GPL-compatible
Steve Loughran writes "The ASF board have put up on the Apache Web site, a page
rebutting claims that the new ASL2.0 license is incompatible with the GPL, claims made by on an
FSF page and covered in
Slashdot last week.The key points are (1) The interpretation of the GPL license is not just the opinions of individuals in the FSF, it is designed to be rigorously defendable in a court of law.
(2) Rather than look at opinions about compatibility, people should look at the
ASF2.0 and GPL licenses to see if they really are compatible.
(3) If you look at the two licenses, they really are compatible.
This means there is nothing to stop you linking your [L]GPL apps against apache libraries, shipping them with apache applications, and the like." Of course, this is still up to debate.
They mean "who cares?" Let the lawyers battle it out, and I'll be standing over here when they're done.
1) The interpretation of the GPL license is not just the opinions of individuals in the FSF, it is designed to be rigorously defendable in a court of law.
(2) Rather than look at opinions about compatibility, people should look at the ASF2.0 and GPL licenses to see if they really are compatible.
(2) If you look at the two licenses, they really are compatible.
I'd learn how to count first.
Simply sucks. It's a pain in the ass.
If you're all into control - and it is about control regardless of what the FSF zealots will tell you, then by all means use it.
If you want to contribute code to the world and make it useful and extensible - use MIT/BSD/some other truly free license. _Your_ code will always remain free, what do you care if someone else adds to it?
If there's a debate at all, it's not worth wasting your time thinking about it.
This is why people like the BSD license.
This is why OpenBSD forks code when others play stupid license tricks. If anyone has to think about what a license might mean, then they're not busy fixing bugs. Pseudo-Clever-Licensing keeps lawyers happy and programmers unproductive.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
A most excellent point.
The owls are not what they seem
So now Linux users can baske themselves in the glow of online dating too?
That's what I call progress!
It also says that versions 1.0 and 1.1 of the ASF License are incompatible... why are we only hearing about this with version 2.0?
libertarianswag.com
In the hypothetical situation in which the APL is determined to be incompatible with the GPL, you could still link (L)GPL apps to Apache project code, because the Apache code would effectively be distributed under two licenses--the APL, and a slightly modified APL to make it GPL-compatible. They say as much by admitting that you can use Apache project code in GPL'd projects.
Wow, that (the actual linked article) is a very stinging reply to the comment on FSF's site. It hits home (lambasting people on Slashdot for bitching before getting their facts straight) and was way overdue.
According to the article, the comment that caused such a ruckus has not been attributed to any official at FSF and not been communicated to Apache by the FSF.
I suppose it is dangerous to assume that the FSF has the final word on the GPL. But until the dust settles on this, I don't think anyone should link the new Apache code. I'm waiting to see if this turns ugly. I hope it doesn't, because it doesn't need to. The last thing the GPL needs is to have it's primary defender fighting it's most well-known user.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
IANAL, but why can't the Apache people add a clause to their license that explicitly proclaims compatibility with some rev of GPL? If the compatiblity clause supercedes other clauses in Apache's license, then there really is no legal grounds for anyone later proclaiming that they are incompatible.
I never trust people that say "trust me, the contract can be interpreted in the way that you want it to." If someone wants a legal document to have a particular property, then the document should explicitly state that it has that property. But again, IANAL.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Is the GPL APL-compatible? Is the GPL compatible with /any/ other license? No. However, the FSF makes a big deal whenever they think that an open source license isn't GPL-compatible.
You just know that the author of the Apache rebuttal page wanted to end his analysis with: "So get bent."
Apache is a pretty good piece of software and if folks don't like the new license, well that's just tough. They have a right to license their code however they choose to. The people who write to them and tell them otherwise really do need to drop off the planet.
-sirket
... Is an ignorant statement. Some authors decide to release their code under a certain license, and people bitch. If ASL doesn't play nice with the GPL, that is unfortunate... and we might have to look at something else. Then again, Apache 1.x is working great as far as I can tell. But these license zealots whining about how the "BSD/ASL/XFree/GPL sucks" are really just ignorant. If I write some code, and don't want it to be sucked up by a profit-making corporation without my consent, and without recieving any credit, that's my own fucking business! By the same token, if I want my code to be able to be used by whomever wants it, again, that's my own fucking business!
One of the major advantages of the ASL 2.0 is that it is now easier for non-ASF projects to use the ASL. Previously you had to use an ASL-like license because unless you wanted to assign your copyright to the ASF you needed to adjust the wording of the license to include your name and your organization. The new license removes that information from the license itself and instead places it in a NOTICE file. This allows other open source projects to take advantage of the ASL and use it for their own organization.
While the ASL 2.0 is longer than the ASL 1.1, it's worth a read. A lot of effort was made to make this an easy license to adopt and use. If you're currently using a MIT or BSD style license, you may want to consider the new ASL 2.0.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Looks like point 2 is repeated with two different phrasings.
Perhaps the following summary is more clear.
2- Rather then listen to opinions, see for yourself. If you look at the two licenses they really are compatible.
"_Your_ code will always remain free, what do you care if someone else adds to it?"
Because some people DO care. If they want to share their code but only with people who will share their modifications (non-internal use only), that is their right.
The different licenses support different developmental methodologies and agendas.
S/He who writes the code chooses the license and if you don't like that, then write your own code.
I will release code under any damn license I please. Yes I do prefer to keep some sort of control "meaning some asshole cannot sell me back my own code" so I CHOOSE to release under the GPL instead of a BSD license.
Got Code?
Great. Now running GNU over Power Lines interferes with Apache. Just wait until the HAMS who run amateur radio websites hear about this.
Oh...wait...
Programmers get irritated with management, sales, supervisors, and especially users when they can't write a specification for us to write programs. We bitch because they're vague and contradictory. They change their minds, can't decide what they want, and try to please all the wrong people with all of the wrong features.
As someone who empathises with users trying to get a workable program, these kinds of license wars crack me up. The next time you complain about the spec being inadaquate or changing: remember that programmers too are mostly incapable of expressing what they want in English and pleasing all of their masters.
Get off my lawn.
Or, does the GPL already serve essentially the same purpose?
Anyone have any ideas as to why it is that suddenly; projects that are integral to the OSS movement (X, apache) are being converted to signifigantly more conservative licenses?
Are we re-playing the unix fragmentation of the late 80's?
This is off-topic, but...
Most of the software licenses (BSD, GPL, etc) debated here have their basic origins in copyright and ideas about intellectual property that are distinctly American/European in origin.
Is there any such thing or is anyone aware of software licensing schemes that are more organically based on non-Western ideas of intellectual property or copyright concepts?
The western bias of these licenses makes sense in that they're primarily issued and used in western countries, and hence, need to be oriented towards western IP and copyright models.
But as software development and usage grows in places like China and India, will we see PPL (People's Public License) or IPL (Indian Public License) with terms or concepts different than GPL/BSD, etc?
Now, I usually don't get this annoyed, but we've gone through a bunch of these recently, and I'm sick of it.
The GPL is not Holy Scripture
The GPL is nice. It works for a large amount of stuff. However, it very much does NOT work for many other things, even in the Open Source world. I don't (and you shouldn't) want everything to be GPL'd. The GPL has a LOT of problems, freedom to copy aside. It is definitely not suitable for every purpose, given our current legal framework.
We should measure a license by how obnoxious and restrictive it is, not some idiot litmus test of GPL-compatibility. I prefer that we gravitate to a small number of general licenses for simplicity's sake, but there is no real good reason that they all HAVE to be GPL-compatible, any more than they all HAVE to be BSD-compatible.
The various ASL versions are all very benign and nice BSD-ish licenses, that may or may not be GPL compatible. They have very liberal code reuse and copying provisions, and very few restrictions. If they are GPL-incompatible, well, then, that's life. I'm not going to get angry over this, any more than I get upset because I can't use GPL libraries with my proprietary code.
Please quite focusing on the idiotic minutia, and pay attention to the hard issues of license lock-in and IP coralling prevelant in software licensing today.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Of course, this is still up to debate
I think is not debatable. Of course I could be wrong. What others think about this is not just the opinions of individuals, so I should not care what you think. But your opinion is important. Really.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
SCO apparently beleives the GPL is SCO License compatible... which just goes to show what somebody thinks doesn't mean jack until you test it in court.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Oh no! Welcome to the Internet!
The owls are not what they seem
Here's what Linux Torvalds said when asked if he wished he'd chosen a different license the GPL:
Absolutely not. I personally think that the BSD license is a dead end for serious projects, since it inevitably results in forking with no way to re-join if it becomes commercially viable.
Forking a project is in my opinion hugely important, since forks are how all real development gets done, and the ability to fork keeps everybody honest (i.e. if you don't do a good job and keep your users happy, they can always fork the project and go on their own). But equally important is the ability to join back forks, when/if some group finds the right solution to a problem. And that's where the GPL comes in: you can really think of the whole license as nothing more than a requirement to be able to re-join a forked project from either side.
GPL, BSD, ASL, and other open source licenses protect software IP as well so you need to deal with them if you want to solve the problems with license lock-ins and IP coralling prevelant in software licensing today.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Certainly they're right that the text of the licence, not the opinion of the FSF, is what matters. However, they seem to not understand their own licence:
Actually, the Apache License says more than that. It says "any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate" if you file certain lawsuits. Without patent licenses, in theory you can't even run the software. (Which is why software patents are evil, stupid, and must be destroyed.)
The Apache License can take away your right to use the software by revoking patent licenses (admittedly, only if you behave like a scumbag, but that's beside the point).This is what is not permitted under the GPL. The GPL states "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein"; a license that says "you can't use this software if you behave like a scumbag and file patent lawsuits" is not compatible with this requirement.
Again, it's not necessarily a bad idea (as the FSF page notes). But it is not GPL-compatible.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The ASF statement actually is really useful, because in essence they are saying they think its GPL compatible, so there are no issues on their side.
Its irrelevant however because Apache is built upon a set of non GPL compliant libraries like OpenSSL and always has been. "Apache 2.0 not GPL", well big deal: Apache 1.0 not GPL either.
You can probably build a non https:// Apache without a few other modules that is GPLable but everyone I've dealt with seems quite happy with the state of apache and the license it uses right now.
This is very different to the XFree 4.4 case where the rules got changed on people.
Its very much like "Windows 98 not GPL".. not news.
Wow...Age/Sex/Location -- now finally GPL friendly. Now I can finally meet people in AOL chatrooms without all of the propritary headache! ;)
-Turkey
Oh yeah! Well, your mother's not GPL compatible!
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
The GPL is not just the agenda of an extremist code liberty organisation. It's also the basic constitution of a large part of the Internet.
The fact that Apache has been moving towards a GPL-compatible license and away from the more open earlier licenses shows that there is a desire to benefit from some of the protection that the GPL offers.
(As a free software author, I've made the same move from liberal BSD-style licenses to the GPL in the last years, swayed in part by Stallman's argument that anything less than the GPL helps commercial competitors more than open source developers.)
The compatibility of these two licenses is essential if we're to see Apache smoothly integrated into wider GPL'd frameworks.
The FSF appears quite flexible in considering changes to the GPL for future versions, and I suspect the Apache Group are important enough to push through what they need.
It's an important discussion and one I'll be following.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The GPL is compatible with any license less restrictive than it is.
The FSF makes a big deal whenever they think that an open source license isn't GPL-compatible because that is their job. They are responsible for maintaining and promoting the GPL and thus people look to them for definitive answers on what exactly what the GPL's place in the world is and what licenses it is and isn't compatible with.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
>This means there is nothing to stop you linking your [L]GPL apps against apache libraries, shipping them with apache applications, and the like."
Of course there isn't. There is nothing stopping me from linking against Microsoft libraries.
I bet as soon as I start making money, or my project becomes prominent, Lawyers from Apache will be beating my door down...
Nice red herring ASF.
l8,
AC
...than that of either the FSF or the ASF: the opinion of the copyright holder of the software. Granted, the copyrights to alot of important softwore have been deeded to the FSF, and thus, their opinion matters with regard to that software.
however, the key to all of this is that only the copyright holder to a piece of software can decide to bring a lawsuit. Thus, if the copyright holder thinks the licenses are compatible, then they damn well are (in that case only).
Bottom line: contact whoever owns the copyright to the software you want to use if you have any questions about your rights under the ASL or GPL.
cleetus
(a soon to be lawyer)
I'd love to hear SCO's opinion on whether the AL2.0 is GPL compatable.
Ohh, c'mon - admit it - you know it would be funny!
booga boo
Unfortunately distributing non-GPLd software with Linux is asking for trouble. Linux is the best-selling open software product and choosing any other license than GPL means an extra hurdle for your software.
... so that more people, including those who chose to release their software under the GPL, can make use of their code (which is the primary interest of the BSD folks).
What a load of absolute crap.
There is absolutely no problem distributing non-GPLed software (even proprietary software) with Linux. Just because the kernel is GPLed doesn't mean the software which runs under it must also be GPLed. glibc is LGPLed (ie. you can link non-GPLed and proprietary software against it), asn are nearly all of the core libraries.
Oracle ships with Linux, and it is proprietary. XFree (pre 4.4) ships with Linux, and has (had) a BSD-ish (but GPL compatible) license. Openssh ships with Linux and has a BSD license. And this list goes on.
There is absolutely no issue whatsoever in distributing non-GPLed software with a GPLed operating system.
There is an issue with combining code from non-GPLed products and GPLed products into a new product, which is why XFree 4.4 is going the way of the Dodo, with virtually every distribution under the sun sticking with 4.3 or going with one of the forks (freedesktop.org or what have you), but that is a result of the amount of GPLed software linked to X libraries no one is willing to give up, not a result of the Linux operating system.
This is why Apache is working toward a GPL-compatable license, and why the FreeBSD folks went through the effort they did to make their license GPL compatible
And yes, this is the kind of Freedom RMS and others, such as myself, like: the freedom to chose the license we prefer for our code, which for many of us is a "share-alike" license such as the GPL.
And the results speak for themselves: the first viable competitor to go up against Microsoft in a generation (Linux), thousands of free software projects where the code is guaranteed to remain free in perpetuity, and widespread cooperation between two philosophical camps despite differing opinions on where to emphasize the freedom (developers a la the BSD, vs. users a la the GPL), rabblerousing from the proprietary sidelines via agent provocateurs, and their less intelligent cousins, trolls such as yourself, notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Look: all of this bitching (though in this case the bitching is apparently ignorant, because it looks like the licenses are compatible) is the process of determining whether it's worth looking at something else! Your code is your own fucking business, but my usage of your code, and my reasons for such, are MY fucking business, and I can choose to make those as bitchy as I want.
This is the first post that contains a correct analysis of the problem.
(and I am not related to the author of that post in any way)
Which no one was doing anyway, since all the of the earlier Apache licenses were clearly and uncontroversially non-GPL-compatible.
The Apache Foundation does not and has never used the GPL on any of their work.
I'm rolling on the floor laughing at the mods that fell for this.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Have you, erm, looked at the Apache Software Foundation project list lately?
This isn't just about a license for the Apache HTTP server. In fact, it isn't even just about ASF projects either, since it offers independent developers a new choice of license to easily release their code under.
Let's say the FSF says "this is GPL incompatible", and half of the community agrees with them. Does this automatically mean it's incompatible? Well, I guess technically not, maybe, but still:
One, any project which descides to link both Apache2 and GPL code is going to be avoided by the plague by quite a lot of people. Individual users will probably be less likely to contribute to a project whose legal validity and future is in doubt. At least some major linux distributions will probably decline to carry it.
Two, the cloud created by the question of whether there is a legal basis to use code that incorporates both Apache2 and GPL code will drive away virtually any business entity who might otherwise use such code. If a corporate legal department gets word that their engineers want to take a project that is liscensed under mixed Apache2 and GPL and redistribute it, and that they "have the right to modify and redistribute this... maybe, unless the FSF is interpreting the license correctly", how do you think they will react to this?
A solid legal footing can't really be established except maybe in court, and a situation where the legal question is resolved in court is highly unlikely to happen for years, if at all-- but it could, at any moment, and you can't say what the outcome will be.
When you get to this point you might as well call it "GPL Incompatible". Almost certainly, in practice, the Apache2 and GPL licenses just aren't going to be mixed. You could get more developer support just by sticking firmly to one or the other. This won't be the end of the world; it will be just like Apache1 and Apache1.1.
Personally I think the GPL is pretty unambiguous and that the Apache2 license is indeed incompatible with it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I didn't think anyone would figure it out. Oh well, like anyone is going to believe you. Mu-ha-ha-ha -ha ha...
--- Steve "Satan" Jobs
GPL Projects. There's about 16,000 listed on Freshmeat, and some of them include some good code which should be reused in other projects if possible.
If the new Apache license is GPL compatible, then source code released under that license can be redistributed linked to GPL code. If not, then to redistribute such a combined work you have to have either special permission from the authors of any GPLed components to put additional restrictions on their code or special permission from the authors of the non-GPLed components to rerelease their code with fewer restrictions. Since that's enough of a PITA that it will make code reuse less common, it would be very nice if it wasn't necessary.
So the disagreement is over whether clause 6 of the GPL:
applies to the patent grant. Does "rights granted herein" refer to the rights in clause 6 ("...copy, distribute, or modify...") or to all rights mentioned in the license?
The GPL is considered a virus, because it is free as in BEER but not as in FREEDOM. It hooks you in with the "FREE BEER" aspect of the software, but you cannot do anything with that software except look at it, or use it. Don't you dare try to use your creativity to change it, because the greedy authors of the original art think your changes is their art. Its a typical trap license, and for people to bitch about another license being incompatible with a virus just sounds silly. The reality is the Apache License has more liberty packed in a few sentances than the GPL will ever have in its' pages upon pages leagal rehtoric.
The sad thing is all this hinges on giving the authors of software fair credit, which the Apache license belives is fair. Where the GPL belives that mentioning contrinutors, you know that people who add contributiosn to the gpl virus-ware, should get due credit, instead of being put under an umbrella of nameless, forgoten contributors who the author forgets to mention, and thus steals their contributions. This is typical GPL fair. The original author offten steals the contributions and never mentions the source of all the little patches, and alterations they force others to give back to them under the terms of the GPL, because the GPL license says listing authors is an incompatiblity.
You don't belive me? Well read for yourself at the GPL website: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html. They spell it out very clearly that listing authors gets in the way of their eventual theft.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
No, compatibility is generally one-way. The MIT license is GPL-compatible: that means you can combine code written under the MIT and GPL licences and release the combination under the GPL. However, you cannot release it under the MIT licence: in this sense, the GPL is not MIT licence compatible.
Not to let the facts get in the way of you spouting nonsense, or anything.
Xenu loves you!
I've been arguing parts of this issue since late last week, when I was contacted by members of Apache Cocoon in regard to their use of my software, Jisp.
A few months back, I began migrating all of my "free" software from the libpng/zlib license to the GPL. Let's not get into the reasons why I made the change; the change is made, and I'm pleased with it.
The Cocoon people discovered my license change, and opened a dialog. In their view, my use of GPL would force them to remove Jisp from Cocoon. They requested that I either change my license or add Jisp to the Apache collective. Beyond a few miscommunications, the discussion was pleasant and educational.
My software remains under the GPL (or a commercial license, for those so inclined). I did not want to join Apache, as I have already committed myself to FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) projects that are more closely aligned with my business and personal interests. I did not want to "give" Jisp to Apache, either, given that I have several paying customers who might be uncomfortable with such a move --and my personal interest in keep Jisp a small, one-man project.
In the end, Cocoon may not even need Jisp , rendering this an intellectual debate as opposed to a practical one.
Most of Cocoon's members were quite polite; a few were quite pushy and arrogant, although some of that may be due to the crossing of language barriers. In the end, I think we've reached a point of mutual respect. People can disagree on these issues, and remain friends.
Licensing issues are rapidly approaching the contentiousness of fundamentalist religion; people are Balkanizing the FOSS world over the finer points of dogma, rather than building a common framework in which we can all thrive.
All about me
Email message from Eben Moglen on license-discuss
But why do they do this through public statements on their webpages and/or public mailinglists. Can't these people lookup each other phone number? Really, if I honestly needed an opinion on something which seems so important as this from either the FSF or the Apache Foundation I would call them up (or send a private email) asking to discuss this in person to clear up any confusion that might result from random statements on some website and/or mailinglist. Neither the FSF or Apache did the community as a whole a service by not trying to talk this out first before publishing all these statements about each other.
In this particular instance I agree with Linus. However, it is very annoying that whenever there is an argument some one always posts Linus' opinion and presents it as THE ANSWER. He's just one famous nerd. Nothing more. You know what the buddists say.. If you meet Buddha waking down the road Kill Him. He will only be a distraction on your road to enlightement.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
16/F/NYC
U?
Where on earth did you hear this? Of course you cannot relicence the code, you're not the copyright holder. Only the copyright holder can relicence code.
You can relicense BSD code under the GPL because the copyright owner has given you permission to do precisely that. BSD without the advertising clause that is - if the advertising clause is present, you can't GPL it because the advertising clause is incompatible with the GPL license.
Now if you don't like this line of thought, don't use the BSD license without the advertising clause.
Licenses are fun! You could spend your whole life studying them and never get anything else done.
Hint whne has the ASf lciense been compatible with GPL?
This is a non story and should have never been on the front page, yawn?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
1, if you count Apple as BSD, and it is now, then I expect BSD is that popular. 2, SCO has actually claimed that - they've threatened reopening the 1994 decision, saying there are terms of the sealed agreement that could screw peoeple. No, that argument doesn't make any sense, but they are addressing the whole BSD thing in their spare time. It just so happens that IBM is involved with linux, not BSD.
And the issue over BSD code ownership is not resolved: SCO is still making claims about it. If BSD ever becomes important enough, they may go to court over it.
As above, they just don't have a deep-pocketed plaintiff with whom they have a prior relationship with the BSD angle. But it's definitely high enough in profile.
It sounds like there is a notion that there is something wrong with the new license for not being GPL compatible and that it should be changed. To some degree, it sounds like the new Apache license in safer and if anything, GPL should try to be more like it.
Sure, there's history and momentum to deal with, but are we going to be as inflexible and lethargic about improving our licenses as proprietary companies are with improving their code? The licensing issue needs to be dealt with, but lets try not to kill the better license. The patent clause ought to be added GPL, not removed from ASL.
Bart: Aren't we forgetting someone...Sister Suspect?
Lisa: [chuckling sheepishly] I was just getting to me. Because of Mr. Burns, they canceled my jazz program, and my friend Tito Puente got fired...but _I_ could never shoot someone.
Bart: Could so.
Lisa: Could not.
Bart: Could so.
Lisa: Could not.
Bart: Could so!
Lisa: Could not!
Homer: [interrupting] Kids, kids, kids. As far as Daddy's concerned, you're _both_ potential murderers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The OSS/FS movements really need to get their licensing 'ducks' in a row...
You know, you'll be burned as a heretic by the Rev. Stallman for doubting the Holy GPL. At the very least, he'll sentence you to torture in The Comfy Chair for your sins.
Repent, sinner! Believe in the One True License. It is not too late to save your soul.
The interpretation of the GPL license is not just the opinions of individuals in the FSF... people should look at the ASF2.0 and GPL licenses to see if they really are compatible.
Heresy! The GPL means exactly what RMS says it means. No more and no less. Suggesting that people should read the GPL for themselves, indeed! Next thing you know you'll be suggesting people read the Bible for themselves instead of trusting in the Pope!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
No, compatibility is generally two-way; you just don't understand what license compatibility means. If I take some code distributed under license A and some code distributed under license B and combine them with some of my own code to make a new program, then when I distribute that program, I'm required by copyright law to abide by the terms of both license A and license B, or else I'm infringing on the copyright of one of those two code pieces. If licenses A and B conflict with each other, so that it's impossible to simultaneously abide by the terms of both licenses, then the licenses are said to be incompatible; otherwise, they are compatible. In other words, saying that licenses A and B are compatible means that you can combine code under license A and code under license B and distribute the result; it does not mean that you can distribute the result under the terms of just license A or just license B.
So in your example, if you take a GPLed program and add to it some MIT-licensed code and then distribute the result, you must abide by, at a minimum, the conjunction of the terms of the GPL and the MIT license. Now, it happens that the terms of the GPL are a strict superset of the terms of the MIT license, so that one can simultaneously abide by the terms of both licenses simply by abiding by the terms of the GPL; but this is not required of license compatibility in general.
Not to let the facts get in the way of you spouting nonsense or anything.
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
Since Asia steals most of its software anyway, they don't need other alternitives to the GPL. After all, "ownership" is such a Western concept.
Licensing issues are rapidly approaching the contentiousness of fundamentalist religion; people are Balkanizing the FOSS world over the finer points of dogma, rather than building a common framework in which we can all thrive.
You mean like when people withold permission to use their free software with other free software because of dogmatic adherence to their One True License?
To put it bluntly, you are part of the problem. Either stop preaching or start dual-licensing your code.
Ah yes Black Duck tracking 100+ FOSS licenses, compatibility .. against source, downloads, installs from 100K+ projects ...
But then one might just consider GPL compatibility update per blog
APACHE WAS SIMPLY FOLLOWING IN GPL'S FOOTSTEPS.
lowercase lowercase lowercase lowercase lowercase lowercase
is that once programmers work out these licences are incompatible they will simply not combine them.
;P
With management, sales and supervisors you can point out that two things they want are contradictory or mutually exclusive and they'll still want you to deliver both things.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Actually, the rebuttal seems to be based on section 7 of the GPL, in particular: "if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."
Which is a much more interesting argument, it's actually changed me from certainty that the ASL2 is incompatible to reserving judgement until I have more time to analyze and consider.
Apache is the Open Source star child. Nothing else matters as much as Apache. I would use Apache no matter what. Don't tell them but I would even pay for it.
If you define economic strictly in terms of money, then no Free Software license exactly offers economic incentives. But the GPL offers far less disincentive than the BSD license in that case - because the terms of the GPL mean that your competitors are not allowed to leverage your work to compete with you without divulging their own work for you to leverage in turn. Therefore, from the economic standpoint as defined above, the GPL does offer economic incentives strictly in comparison with licenses like the BSDL.
Once you realise that economics isn't just about money per se, you see that there is indeed an economic incentive involved - other peoples work and code. If you have software you want to exist - where control of that software isn't so important to you but it's existence, maturity, and performance are, then the GPL offers great incentives. This is the case if, for a single example, you are a hardware manufacturer. You need software to run on your hardware, otherwise no one will buy it. Control of the software isn't critical - your business plan is built on hardware sales, not software licensing fees. In that case, and many others, it makes great sense economically to use the GPL.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
After considering the possibilities, I think the Apache folks are wrong, and their license IS still GPL-incompatible.
The flaw in their rebuttal is when they say: "In other words, the GPL says that you cannot redistribute software that is covered by a patent wherein the patent is not licensed free for everyone." But that's not true. The requirement is that the patent be licensed for use UNDER THE GPL! Thus, for example, IBM has licensed some of their patents for use under the GPL so that Linus would accept their code, but they (IBM) still reserve the right to sue, say, the SCO Group for using their patented methods in SCO Unixware.
Code released under the GPL may be included in projects with thse liceances:
GPL
Nope. Or to be more precise, that's only partially true. The project as a whole must be considered to be under the GPL if portions are GPL'd, but portions that are not GPL'd, but are merely under a compatible license, are still under that compatible license. Thus (practical actual working real-world example here), I have a project that is BSD'd except for one module (an EMACS connector) that is GPL'd. Thus, the whole thing is distributed under the terms of the GPL, but the module is completely separate, and if you delete it, what you are left with is a BSD'd project. If the GPL prevented this, I would have to distribute the module separately, which would be stupid and pointless, but it doesn't, so I don't.
The BSD license allows sublicensing. It does not allow relicensing. While not directly relevent to the current debate, this is an important distinction, and it grates on my ear to hear people talking about relicensing the code.
Then why don't they just use the GPL?
Wow .. I'm sure glad that it is GPL compatible.
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Orppf urp mf y.ppcxn. yflcbi otcnnov C am yflcbi yr n.apb Ekrpatv (Dvorak -> Qwerty)
One of the times this has come up on the kernel list. You can see this in thread view search the page for BSD and read the entire thread if you want.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
This is a useful insight, thanks. You discuss two relations between licenses: one of compatibility ("~"), which is symmetric and reflexive, and one you call "superset", which defines a partial ordering on licences ("]"). Now note that "X [ Y" implies "X ~ Y", since if in meeting the terms of X you automatically meet the terms of Y, then you can always distribute a combination under the terms of X. (In fact you can define "~" thus: "X ~ Y" <=> \exists Z st Z [ X and Z [ Y and Z permits free redistribution)
I used "compatibility" to refer to the latter property, but you're right that the former property is a better fit for the word. I was misled because the GPL has the property that "GPL ~ X" implies "GPL [ X" - the only licences that are compatible with the GPL are those which are strictly more permissive.
I think this property still means that the poster I replied to was wrong in substance - the GPL is not an "equal partner" with the MITL. They're only "getting along" because the MITL is prepared to do everything the GPL says. Some partnership!
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