[SciPy-dev] [Fwd: Re: license status of your code on netlib]

[josef.pktd at gmail.com]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:43, <josef.pktd at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:03, <josef.pktd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 02:48, Benny Malengier<benny.malengier at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On a side note, due to this I have read
>>>>>> http://scipy.org/License_Compatibility and as a developer who writes
>>>>>> BSD and GPL licenced code, I find the section 'John Hunter's License
>>>>>> Pitch' not very suiting.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have deleted it. I too do not like having a polemic on a page that
>>>>> should just be describing the facts of license compatibility.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I also read this for the first time, but it contains mostly the obvious
>>>> cases.
>>>>
>>>> What is the compatibility for the Apache license ?
>>>>
>>>> There was the discussion on the cython list and I know of some
>>>> packages, that I'm interested in, that use Apache.
>>>
>>
>>> Slightly incompatible. It's mostly good, but it has a few provisions
>>> in it, like the patent peace clause, that make it GPLv2-incompatible.
>>
>> If this is not a typo: I don't understand how GPLv2 compatibility of
>> the Apache license affects the compatibility with BSD
>
> Well, compatibility may not be the right word. One can take BSD code
> and Apache code and combine them into a program. One can take BSD code
> and GPLv2 code and combine them into a program. One cannot take an
> Apache code and a GPLv2 code and combine them into a program. This is
> frequently what people refer to as "license compatibility".
>
> However, per our BSD *policy* we should not take in Apache code
> because then our project will contain code that has additional
> restrictions beyond our advertised "BSD license". In particular, users
> can mix our BSD code with their GPLv2 code freely. If we had an
> Apache-licensed component, they could not. Or at least we would have
> to change things significantly to allow people to "avoid" certain
> components. That's a pain in the ass; the problem is better resolved
> by having the differently-licensed code packaged separately.

Thanks for the clarification, this means essentially that BSD and MIT
are the only
non-infectious licenses (of the popular ones).

Josef


>
> --
> Robert Kern
>
> "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
> enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
> though it had an underlying truth."
>  -- Umberto Eco
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