Re: Rhino and LGPL

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> I am curious why Rhino is under an MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0 dual license as 
> opposed to the tri-license.

Because it was not part of Mozilla at the time of relicensing, and so 
specifically excluded from the relicensing process. It has historically 
been NPL/GPL.

When it was NPL/GPL, a bug was opened about making it BSD to be 
compatible with the Apache license.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236108
In the end, Apache agreed the MPL was compatible, and so we changed to 
MPL/GPL, because this didn't require getting additional permissions.

> There's a large body of very useful Apache-licensed Java source out 
> there, so non-trivial Java apps are likely to use some. Since the Apache 
> licenses and GPLv2 are deemed incompatible by the FSF, the GPL option 
> effectively vanishes leaving only MPL 1.1. And MPL is known to be a 
> problem if one wants to get code in Debian...

<sigh>

> Are there any plans to add the LGPL option to Rhino? (If GPLv3 indeed 
> ends up being Apache License 2.0-compatible, the GPLv2 "or later" 
> language will take care of this with time assuming that Debian approves 
> of GPLv3.)

No plans; it would require contacting all the copyright holders who have 
not already been contacted about the relicensing project. (Although 
Rhino was excluded from the initial relicensing, the permission given 
was general enough to apply to Rhino.)

BSDing it would require contacting all contributors, without exception.

Gerv