Re: [jgroups-dev] [javagroups-users] JGroups license change ?

Our company spent a huge amount of money going thru this effort. We saw
this article as well and tried to use it in our defense. Our usage of the
open source code and how strongly we depended on drove us to remove LGPL
2.1 licensed code as much as possible. Where we didn¹t have a reasonable
alternative (like Jgroups) we had to go thru all of the provisions of the
LGPL license and ensure that we met all of the conditions to the
satisfaction of our IP law firm. An article of unknown pedigree wont help
a legal dispute in the courtroom. It is better for a commercial software
company to be safe than sorry. M&A events like a buyout, merger, or IPO
focus very closely on IP issues and proper compliance. Any hint of
noncompliance can be a deal breaker. M&A people don¹t like IP issues
clouding their deals

Dov


On 7/13/11 7:30 AM, "Bela Ban" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
>On 7/13/11 4:23 PM, Dov Rosenberg wrote:
>> we just went thru a large software audit with an IP law team. LGPL 2.1
>>raised a bunch of flags with them for several reasons. Apache 2.0 or MIT
>>licensing is much more preferable for commercial usage. We had to
>>document in great detail responses to the following questions. LGPL
>>licensing requires greater supporting documentation to be created and
>>maintained and is very easy to be non compliant with. LGPL 3.0 is a
>>complete poison pill for commercial usage and has not been widely
>>adopted by many open source projects.
>
>
>I didn't like LGPL 3.0 either, when I read it the first time. Didnt'
>study it carefully enough though, so I'd have to revisit it.
>
>
>> LGPL 2.1 appears to have been written for non Java programs where
>>libraries are linked into the executable. We had a number of discussions
>>with the IP lawyers regarding how java programs use components via
>>classpath. Their contention is that the resulting application is still
>>considered a derivative work since it depends on the presence of the
>>LGPL binaries in order to operate as intended.
>
>
>Hmm, I thought the FSF clarified this:
>http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html, and this would be OK...
>
>>  The Apache 2.0 license is much less restrictive and has a lot fewer
>gray areas than LGPL.
>>
>> PLEASE CHANGE THE LICENSING FOR JGROUPS !!!!!!!!!
>
>
>Noted your vote, thanks,
>
>-- 
>Bela Ban
>Lead JGroups (http://www.jgroups.org)
>JBoss / Red Hat


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