Re: Berkeley DB 6.0 license change to AGPLv3

[Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>]

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).

Ondrej

--
Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>