Re: Apache License & GPL

[bruce@perens.com]

From: Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>
> I was going to ask the the Jakarta people to consider changing
> the license to a more unrestricted license by dropping those
> three clauses, so also projects using code under the GPL could
> benefit from the work that Sun donated.

Please ask them to use the X11 license. It is compatible with the GPL
and the Apache license. The BSD and Apache licenses are just the X11 license
with obnoxious stuff added.

> And to add the suggestion (from Richard Stallman) that they trademark the
> name Apache and have a seperate trademark license in which they could (or
> could not) grant rights to the Apache name.

Yes, this is the correct way to do it.

Since I am running Debian I wondered how Debian had solved these
issues since they refer to the binary as apache although it is
a derived product (the apache_1.3.3-7.diff.gz is 154K). Did Debian
get special permission to call use the Apache name?

> And in the /usr/doc/apache/copyright file I noticed that the
> modifications for Debian are released under the terms of the GPL.
> How does this work when the Apache license doesn't seem to be
> compatible with the GPL?

Debian's not really derived a product, they've just packaged Apache's own
offering.

> And in the /usr/doc/apache/copyright file I noticed that the
> modifications for Debian are released under the terms of the GPL.
> How does this work when the Apache license doesn't seem to be
> compatible with the GPL?

The debian mods are things like installation scripts and don't exist in the
same address space as the Apache code.

	Thanks

	Bruce