[jira] [Created] (LEGAL-162) May I use a ALv2 compatible licensed 3rd party library which depends upon and directly uses GPL2/GPL3 APIs?

["Ate Douma (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Ate Douma created LEGAL-162:
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             Summary: May I use a ALv2 compatible licensed 3rd party library which depends upon and directly uses GPL2/GPL3 APIs?
                 Key: LEGAL-162
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-162
             Project: Legal Discuss
          Issue Type: Question
            Reporter: Ate Douma


The actual use-case concerns a possible contribution to Apache Shindig providing optional support for Neo4J (http://www.neo4j.org).
Neo4J (API) libraries are distributed under the GPL3 license which of course cannot and will not be distributed by the ASF.
The Neo4J support is intended to be fully optional, so Apache Shindig will not depend on this and the end-user will have to provide the required dependencies itself.

The proposed contribution currently has a direct dependency on and usage of Neo4J APIs.
This is already assumed not to be allowed as this causes the GPL3 license to become applicable to the whole of the (optional) Apache Shindig neo4j support module.

However, a possible 'workaround' has been proposed by replacing the direct Neo4J API usages with a 3rd party ALv2 compatible licensed 'bridge' library: Spring Data Neo4j (http://www.springsource.org/spring-data/neo4j).
This bridge is ALv2 licensed, however it depends and uses Neo4J APIs directly itself, and is not provided by the Neo4J project itself.

So while this bridge seems to 'hide' the direct GPL3 usage behind an ALv2 'facade', it seems to me this really is a 'fake' solution, still causing the GPL3 to be application, if indirectly.

I like to get a clear confirmation or rejection of the above assumption, so we can proceed with possible accepting/rejecting the contribution as proposed.

Thanks, Ate

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