Apache vs. BSD licenses

Ian Stokes-Rees ijs at decisionsoft.com
Tue Mar 20 10:59:19 UTC 2001


We are looking at open sourcing a software project and are currently
trying to evaluate BSD vs. Apache.  The issue is that our code base
includes Xerces-C (XML parser) which is under Apache Public License. 
The implication, then, is that for both subsequent source and binary
distributions there is the requirement to a) include the APL (this makes
sense and isn't a problem), and b) include credits in binary only
distributions (more annoying).

I understand that the FSF position on this is that the APL is GPL
incompatible because otherwise the required list of creditors grows and
grows with every person who makes individual contributions which are not
signed over to one of the current "owners".

Could I get some feedback on how one best deals with this circumstance? 
I am assuming that it is best _not_ to propagate the credit list
approach, and therefore we should release all our software under BSD
rather than our version of Apache.  We don't want to restrict
proprietary commercial use of our code base, so BSD seems like the best
selection, but we are still open to suggestions.  We think our use of
Xerces precludes us from using GPL since GPL is supposedly incompatible
with APL.

Cheers,

Ian.

-- 
Ian Stokes-Rees, Engineering Manager  DecisionSoft Ltd.
Telephone: +44-1865-203192            http://www.decisionsoft.com



More information about the License-discuss mailing list