Re: Berkeley DB 6.0 license change to AGPLv3

[Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>]

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Clint Adams <clint@debian.org> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 02, 2013 at 05:22:03PM +0200, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> Also it would cultivate the debate here if you have presented your arguments (e.g. explain why I might be mistaken) instead of presenting just the ad hominem arguments. Thanks.

I am not a lawyer, though I work for lawyers.  It would be
irresponsible for me to present such arguments.

While flushing all said with 'you misunderstand AGPL' is a responsible thing to do.

 

I can suggest, however, that you can either read the license text
or contact licensing@fsf.org before spreading more FUD.

I don't believe I have spread any FUD.

1. AGPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility).

2. AGPLv3 is incompatible with Apache 2.0 license (http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html)

3. AGPLv3 is more restrictive thus distributing the derivate works must be licensed under AGPLv3 (e.g. GPL is hereditary) (f.e. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html)

So a move from SleepyCat license to GPL based one is in fact problematic and cannot be done lightly (and without upstream software author consent).

Just to clarify – I am not in any way opposed to the hereditary properties of (A)GPL. The evil thing is the relicensing at the point where people depend on you, and not the license itself.

O.

--
Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>