[JDEV] Resolution of Licence issues..

[Jeremie]

>   2) I am going to contact the author of the expat libraries, to see if he will 
> allow us to use the expat libraries under the LGPL as well, instead of strait 
> GPL.

As was mentioned, expat is also covered under the MPL, which is very
similiar to the LGPL in it's outcome.

>   3) Once #2 is talken care of, I propose we change the license of jlib itself, 
> to be LGPL INSTEAD of GPL.  I'm not sure what we can do about the 
> transport/client code itself.  The perl modules are all released under the 
> Artistic License, so there is no worry there..

It's a sensitive subject in the FSF... I'm not sure which way to go on
this yet...

The reasoning goes something like: the LGPL is for open-source libraries
that compete with existing functionality in commercial libraries, to help
sway commercial development into using a better library.  If what you're
writing is a *new* library implimenting *new* functionality, you should
avoid the LGPL and just use the GPL as there is no commercial development
to convert.

That being said, I believe that forcing our "commercial neighbors" to
re-impliment what we're doing in jlib might be a step backwards, when they
could just contribute their efforts to help jlib become a better library
for their development as well as ours.

So if a commercial entity can step forward and express interest in
contributing to and utilizing jlib, let's use the LGPL, otherwise if there
is no commercial interest, GPL will protect us from any corporate entity
scooping it up w/o us knowing about it :)

Jer