More LGPL Questions

[Chris Custine <cc...@apache.org>]

I know there have been many discussions about LGPL code here recently, but
after reading the thread archive and
http://people.apache.org/~rubys/3party.html I would still like to pass two
issues to this mailing list for review.

Scenario #1:
For Apache ServiceMix, I am interested in moving the packaging code for the
JBoss SAR package of ServiceMix from codehaus to the actual ServiceMix SVN
and build process.  To do this would mean maintaining code at Apache that
imports certain JBoss Java packages from jar files that are available via
the maven central repository.  During the build process, the JBoss jar file
would be downloaded and used in the build process via imports and
implementing several interfaces from the package, but we would not
distribute the jar file, nor would we directly use any source from JBoss.
Obviously JBoss is LGPL, so the question is whether *any* of the following
are acceptable:
1).  Maintaining said code at Apache.
2).  Distributing binary packages that includes such code (if we leave the
code at codehaus).
3).  Allowing users to download the source and build the packages
themselves.



Scenario #2:
Another issue I am researching is the potential usage of the
OpenInstaller[1]  project for building binary installers for end users.
OpenInstaller generates Java based installers from descriptor files and
therefore wraps several third party jar files for the installer routines
along with the product binaries that you are installing.  The OpenInstaller
code itself is CDDL 1.0, but in researching all of the dependencies it
appears to include a single LGPL jar file that is used for text based
installers.  So clearly the LGPL code is not directly used by the Apache
project nor would we distribute it as a core part of the project, but the
LGPL jar file would be pulled in during the process of creating the
installer package and *may* be used by a user during the install process.
However, the functionality of the LGPL file is only used to transfer the
project binaries during the installation and is not part of the
functionality of the Apache project.  I think it is trivial to short circuit
and prevent this LGPL dependency from being included in the generated
installation routines, but the functionality may be useful if we can use it.


Thanks for any input!
Chris


[1].  https://openinstaller.dev.java.net/