Re: [Webmacro] Webmacro & Velocity

[Jason Hunter <jh...@collab.net>]

Brian Behlendorf wrote:
> 
> Hi.  Today at CollabNet's offices in San Francisco, Justin Wells, Jon
> Stevens, Brian Goetz, and Brian Behlendorf met to discuss the future
> of Webmacro and Velocity.  

Wonderful news!  I wish I'd been able to be in the office yesterday.

>   b) Launch, in parallel and in the same codebase, a 2.0 effort, 
> to be code-named "Apache Velocity".  Here is where we'd take a 
> "fresh start" to the code development, 

This sounds like an endorsed "revolution", and (following in the
footsteps of Catalina) perhaps we shouldn't already bless it 2.0 but
rather call it a possible 2.0.

> Now it's been brought to our attention
> that the GPL is incompatible with the trademark-related clauses 
> of the licenses; the part that say, "You can use our code in other 
> products, you just can't call those other products 'Apache'".  
> Stallman now believes this represents an addition restriction on 
> redistribution, and is thus a conflict with the GPL.  
> ...
> So, we will address this issue within the ASF; there are a number
> of possibilities, from the simple (simply dual-licensing WebMacro) 
> to the more correct but harder (updating the APL across all 
> apache.org projects).  This proposal presumes this problem will 
> be addressed.
> 
> So, thoughts?  

I strongly believe in the right of a project to control the releases
that go out with that project name.  Trademark is probably sufficient to
enforce this, but I like having a license that makes it absolutely clear
-- plus it means the project team doesn't have to go through the legal
trouble of rigidly protecting their trademark.  If Apache could only
protect itself with trademark law, then the first instance of Apache on
every apache.org web page would probably need a (tm) after it, and what
a PITA that would be.

Guess that means I'm in favor of dual licensing and not making the APL
into essentially "public domain with a disclaimer clause".  :-)

-jh-