Geronimo and JBoss [LWN.net]

Geronimo and JBoss

Posted Jun 3, 2004 5:28 UTC (Thu) by hingo (subscriber, #14792)
In reply to: Geronimo and JBoss by angdraug
Parent article: Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache Geronimo as an Official Project

I draw a parallel with XFree86 because, just like David Dawes, they intentionally stick to a GPL-incompatible license. Using GPL-incompatible licenses is bad for free software as it fragments the pool of available code. Instead of two classes of licenses, GPL and BSD-like, allowing free exchange of code between projects, now we get GPL vs. GPL-incompatible with no flow of code possible between the two.

And who said it is only due to licensing?

Greg Stain, ASF Chairman, said this, on the page I've posted a link to: JBoss is LGPL which is incompatible with the Apache license. Thus, we will not (and cannot) simply use the JBoss code. Of course, JBoss is invited to bring their code to Apache; they have a lot of value to bring, so I hope they will. (...) We're also inviting the JOnAS folks to partipate. (...) With the ASF's unrestrictive license, I'm hoping that people will be able to use the ASF implementation for their needs rather than building separate systems.

Please do not mix things that have nothing to do with each other. I don't know what the FSF has against Apache, but we all know that the Geronimo folks could not reuse LGPL code anyway, just like BSD cannot take (L)GPL code and put it under a pure BSD license. And this is what Greg Stain is talking about.

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Geronimo and JBoss

Posted Jun 3, 2004 9:26 UTC (Thu) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Please do not mix things that have nothing to do with each other. I don't know what the FSF has against Apache, but we all know that the Geronimo folks could not reuse LGPL code anyway, just like BSD cannot take (L)GPL code and put it under a pure BSD license. And this is what Greg Stain is talking about.

Should we re-stage the BSD vs. GPL holy war here?

FSF has nothing against Apache, they find ASL 2.0 a fine free software license, the only problem with it being GPL-incompatible.

Geronimo folks could reuse LGPL code, combine it with BSD code, and put it under LGPL, but they willingly chose not to. Fine, they had a reason for that, they want their code to be available to proprietary software vendors, and they are willing to pay the price of implementing J2EE from scratch.

But if that be their goal, they could at least release their code under a GPL-compatible BSD-like license, so that other folks could combine it with LGPL code and put it under LGPL. And at the time Geronimo started, Greg's promises made everyone believe that this scenario is to take place.

The fact that they chose to deny others such freedom shows that they are hostile to GPL. Being a GPL supporter and releasing my own software under GPL, I obviously have a problem with that.

Geronimo and JBoss

Posted Jun 4, 2004 8:36 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Ok. You have a problem with it, that's fine. But it's still not right to misquote someone like that, when we all know he was speaking about something entirely different than you are.

Geronimo and JBoss

Posted Jun 8, 2004 9:53 UTC (Tue) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Don't be knitpicking. I gave a link to the original discussion so that anyone can RTFA and see for themselves if I'm misquoting or not. At least that is the way I understood it back then: Greg was asked point blank why not use JBoss code and he said it was due to licensing. What's wrong with quoting that?