From: Per Bothner <per@bothner.com>
To: Tony anon <tonys-mailbox@hotmail.com>
CC: kawa@sourceware.org
Subject: Re: License issues
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:45:24 -0800
Tony anon wrote:
I'm a little concerned about the licensing situation with Kawa.
I note that Kawa as a whole is covered under the X11/MIT license, which I
believe is fine for commercial/closed source use.
However, certain elements such as gnu.bytecode still appear to be covered
under the GPL.
That is not the intention. Where do you see that? (Please check the
current SVN sources or the recently annoucened kawa 1.8.91 beta.)
The page covering the license includes the statement: "Note that not all
of the file files have been updated yet to reflect the new license." Is
it the case that all of the code will converted over to X11/MIT, or will
some elements remain under the GPL?
If some elements do remain under the GPL, isn't Kawa a derivative work of
these libraries and thus still covered under the GPL?
Yes, *if* that were true. But even before Kawa's license was changed
to X11/MIT, Kawa was not GPL-only. Specifically, if you used Kawa
without modifying it that you could link it with propriatay software.
In any case, this issue should be moot.
Of course if you're shipping Kawa in a commercial product I'm be
interested in knowing about it, in terms of knowing what people use
Kawa; however that is not required. And if course I'd be happy to
offer a support contract, and sponsorship to support specific
improvements to Kawa would be welcome.
--
--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com http://per.bothner.com/