What about LGPL? Re: Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL

[Lawrence E. Rosen]

The AFL has the same effect with the LGPL as it does with the GPL.  I
contend it is also fully compatible.  All are free licenses.  

The issue has nothing to do with linking.  

/Larry Rosen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news [mailto:news at main.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Andrew C. Oliver
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 5:12 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: What about LGPL? Re: Compatibility of the AFL with the GPL
> 
> 
> Lawrence E. Rosen wrote:
> > Richard,
> > 
> > Today you finally gave public reasons for your assertion 
> that the AFL 
> > is incompatible with the GPL.  Because you are simply wrong 
> on the law 
> > and wrong-headed on a matter of principle, I must file this public 
> > response.
> 
> So I think I understand the controvery regarding GPL and why 
> GPL and ASL 
> (aka AFL) don't work together.  What about LGPL and ASL in 
> the situation 
> of Java?  Apache has a long standing ban on LGPL being used in Java 
> projects and I want to know if its justified.
> 
> I asked if Eben Moglen's comments in slashdot on the subject were 
> sufficient to lift the ban and Roy Fielding responded:
> 
> "
> No.  What the FSF needs to say is that inclusion of the 
> external interface names (methods, filenames, imports, etc.) 
> defined by an LGPL jar file, so that a non-LGPL jar can make 
> calls to the LGPL jar's implementation, does not cause the 
> including work to be derived from the LGPL work even though 
> java uses late-binding by name (requiring that names be 
> copied into the derived executable), and thus does not (in 
> and of itself) cause the package as a whole to be restricted 
> to distribution as (L)GPL or as open source per section 6 of 
> the LGPL. "
> 
> Most authors of Java software using the LGPL license intend to allow 
> linking (basically the use of the java "import" of classes in 
> their jar 
> file).  Who is right?  Apache with their insistance that the LGPL is 
> "viral" for Java software or the masses who think LGPLing their code 
> causes modifiers to contribute but linking/use to be 
> uninhibited even to 
> proprietary software?  (where the term "link" is not wholely 
> appropriate 
> for Java, I interperate it to mean including a jar in the 
> classpath at 
> compile-time and runtime and having import statement naming classes 
> inside of a jar)
> 
> On a personal note, clearing this up would help me greatly as I would 
> like to use Trove4J (http://trove4j.sourceforge.net/) in the Apache 
> project I founded (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi) instead of our own 
> collection classes.  Secondly, I am considering releasing an upcoming 
> Java codebase in LGPL or GPL, and while I understand the full 
> ramifications of GPL, I do not feel I fully understand the 
> ramifications 
> of LGPL with regards to this issue.
> 
> I would greatly appreciate if Mr. Stallman and Mr. Rosen 
> could provide a 
> definitive answer on this.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Andrew C. Oliver
> 
> 
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