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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by Sylvain Wallez <sy...@apache.org> on 2005/05/19 15:20:54 UTC
Re: Issues with Rhino licensing
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
><board-director-hat mode="on">
>
>The board met today and received both the cocoon PMC report and the XML
>Graphics PMC report concerning the Rhino licensing issues.
>
>Knowing how important this dependency is for the Cocoon project and
>worried that this issue might escalate further, the board is officially
>asking the two PMCs involved in this to escalate the issue and consider
>thier first priority.
>
>In short, the board would like to know:
>
> 1) whether or not the rhino project contains code licensed under a
>license different than MPL 1.1, which is a license the ASF approves for
>dependency and redistribution.
>
>
Before october 2004, it seems Rhino source files were either NPL/GPL or
MPL/GPL, and even MPL/GPL/LGPL.
In october 2004, all source file headers were changed to indicate dual
NPL 1.1/GPL licensing. The download page [1] now indicates only NPL 1.1
> 2) if so, how big/fundamental are those parts
>
>
Rhino is composed of 110 source files, and _all_ of them now have dual
NPL 1.1/GPL license headers. So this affects Rhino in its entirety.
> 3) if so, whether or not the rhino project or the mozilla foundation is aware of the issue
>
>
Currently not, as we would like some clarification regarding whether the
NPL is acceptable, this license being essentially some additions to MPL
1.1 that allow Netscape to build proprietary products with NPL-licensed
code [2].
IANAL, but if MPL is acceptable, it seems to me that NPL should be ok
too, and I would like to see a clear position statement of the licensing
team regarding the NPL before moving further.
There has been some talks with the Mozilla foundation last year about
changing the Rhino license to an MIT-style license [3], but this proved
to be a important amount of work, as all contributors had to be
contacted to approve the change to a more liberal license. This effort
wasn't brought to its end because of the required energy.
> 4) if so, what is the proposal strategy to resolve it and what is the timeframe.
>
>
As said above, there are currently no talks with Mozilla regarding this.
If NPL turns out not to be acceptable, we'll go back to them and ask for
a change to plain MPL which as you said above is approved by the ASF for
redistribution, and should me easier to achieve than a change to the MIT
license.
>I understand some of this can be found in the archives, but I would like
>to have a discussion going and it's very much important we solve this
>Rhino problem once and for all.
>
>
I totally agree!
>Also, the board would like the PMCs to resolve the issue on their own,
>but if action is required, both for legal evaluation or higher level
>contacts with the Mozilla Foundation, I will be willing to channel
>those, even if, as you all know, this was our last board meeting so I
>don't know if I'll be part of the next board.
>
>
As outlined by Martin, other projects (Struts and Jakarta Commons) also
use Rhino, so we actually have 4 PMCs that are impacted by this issue.
As a first step in solving this issue, I would like the licensing team
to give us their position regarding NPL 1.1. We'll then see what actions
are needed.
Sylvain
[1] http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/download.html
[2] http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/NPL-1.1.html
[3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236108
--
Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies
http://apache.org/~sylvain http://anyware-tech.com
Apache Software Foundation Member Research & Technology Director
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Re: Issues with Rhino licensing
Posted by Brett Porter <br...@apache.org>.
I think you can strike Ant from the list. AFAIK it only depends on it
via BSF, which itself is not distributed with Ant (just an optional task
that uses it if present).
Adam R. B. Jack wrote:
>>As outlined by Martin, other projects (Struts and Jakarta Commons) also
>>use Rhino, so we actually have 4 PMCs that are impacted by this issue.
>>
>>
>
>I just ambled across this posting. I'm not sure what the 4 PMC are, but in
>case it helps .. [1] says Jakarta-BSF, Jakarta-JMeter and Ant depend upon
>Rhino (as well as XML Batik/Cocoon.) I'm just throwing this out in case it
>discovers one(s) not otherwise detected.
>
>regards
>
>Adam
>
>[1] http://vmgump.apache.org/gump/public/rhino/rhino/details.html
>
>
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>
>
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Re: Issues with Rhino licensing
Posted by Sylvain Wallez <sy...@apache.org>.
Adam R. B. Jack wrote:
>>As outlined by Martin, other projects (Struts and Jakarta Commons) also
>>use Rhino, so we actually have 4 PMCs that are impacted by this issue.
>>
>>
>
>I just ambled across this posting. I'm not sure what the 4 PMC are, but in
>case it helps .. [1] says Jakarta-BSF, Jakarta-JMeter and Ant depend upon
>Rhino (as well as XML Batik/Cocoon.) I'm just throwing this out in case it
>discovers one(s) not otherwise detected.
>
>
Knowing depencencies is good, but best would be to have a position from
the legal team about the NPL!
Any advice?
Sylvain
--
Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies
http://apache.org/~sylvain http://anyware-tech.com
Apache Software Foundation Member Research & Technology Director
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Re: Issues with Rhino licensing
Posted by "Adam R. B. Jack" <aj...@apache.org>.
> As outlined by Martin, other projects (Struts and Jakarta Commons) also
> use Rhino, so we actually have 4 PMCs that are impacted by this issue.
I just ambled across this posting. I'm not sure what the 4 PMC are, but in
case it helps .. [1] says Jakarta-BSF, Jakarta-JMeter and Ant depend upon
Rhino (as well as XML Batik/Cocoon.) I'm just throwing this out in case it
discovers one(s) not otherwise detected.
regards
Adam
[1] http://vmgump.apache.org/gump/public/rhino/rhino/details.html
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