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Re: apache non-free?



Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes:

[ I am speaking on behalf of myself, albeit as a member of the Apache
Software Foundation, though not a representative. ]

> On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 11:32:34AM +1100, Daniel Stone wrote:

> > I've raised the issue here before, and I, along with others, was
> > involved in an off-list 100-mail discussion with upstream about
> > it.  We're violating it, but as long as we don't do anything too
> > radical with it, and feed all our changes back to them, they'll
> > turn a blind eye.

The purpose behind the ASF license is so that people don't make
something from Apache code and call it Apache when it really isn't.
Like Websphere, for instance.

I hate these discussions, though, I think they are just so much
bullshit.  Licenses are about how people want their code to be used,
so if that is in doubt, ask them, dammit, instead of starting another
stupid and pointless "legal" discussion amongst people with next to no
legal qualifications or background.

The ASF produces free software after all, you know, we aren't some
mindless corporation...

> Like the <whatever that bunch was called> promising not to go after
> Felten for publishing his paper?

Are you really comparing the ASF to the RIAA or whichever megalopoly
controlled lobbying group is doing that?  You and the people who think
we (Debian) are going to get sued by us (the ASF)...  You make me want
to quit Debian and disocciate myself with such idiotic remarks.

> Saying that they'll turn a blind eye if we do this that or the other
> doesn't change the fact that we are violating the licence. Are we
> the subject of favouritism here? We're fine because we're Debian but
> if some company in Redmond did exactly the same thing they *would*
> complain?

Apple ships Apache, and calls it Apache, with MacOS X.  Microsoft
could ship it as Apache too, as long as they didn't seriously futz
around with it.  IBM ships a changed version of Apache, and because of
that, it's called WebSphere (they include lots of other goop,
too). You have to realize that the ASF is quite a different group
from, say, GNU.

Now, can we go back to coding?  Please?

-- 
David N. Welton
   Consulting: http://www.dedasys.com/
Free Software: http://people.debian.org/~davidw/
   Apache Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org/
     Personal: http://www.efn.org/~davidw/



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