Embrace and extend [LWN.net]

Embrace and extend

Posted Oct 23, 2012 19:58 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Embrace and extend by Wol
Parent article: OpenOffice graduates from the Apache Incubator

That is what I was wondering: does the LibreOffice project relicense the code to MPL/LGPL? Do they need to ask for consent, or does the Apache Software License allow for such relicensing to happen automatically?

The other possibility is in line with what others have commented: release under the LGPL, but keep some parts under the ASL.

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Embrace and extend

Posted Oct 24, 2012 14:50 UTC (Wed) by thumperward (guest, #34368) [Link]

MPL2 is compatible with the ASL. A detailed (and, I should say, easily Googleable) explanation of exactly what is happening and exactly what it means for LibreOffice's licensing is available here:

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Re-Basing

If you've "never seen an authoritative answer" as regards how interoperable the Apache license is, by the way, it rather raises the question of how exactly you believed copylefted projects were able to make use of Apache code for all these years.

Embrace and extend

Posted Oct 24, 2012 15:09 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

My ignorance is ample enough to encompass all kinds of license combinations, I can assure you. I knew that code under the Apache License version 1 (formerly known as the Apache Software License, ALv1 for short) could be relicensed to GPLv2, I knew that GPLv3 was compatible (by design) with ALv2, I did not know if you can just change the headers from ALv2 to GPLv3 and be done with it.

After reading the linked wiki (thanks for that), it appears that they will acknowledge code from the ASF and under the ALv2, and relicense the code at the same time under the MPLv2. Nice and clean.