[jdev] Jabberd 1.4.x license concerns/questions

[Jamin W.Collins]

On Mar 31, 2005, at 7:14 PM, Jamin W.Collins wrote:
>
> Looking at Jabber.Org's server listing[2], it indicates that the 
> Jabberd source is licensed under the GPL.  However review of the 1.4.3 
> (last stable release) files shows that the primary license is the JOSL 
> with an option to relicense under the GPL only if the existing JOSL 
> notice is removed and replaced with a GPL notice.  This effectively 
> means that almost every file within the upstream release must be 
> modified.  Is there a way that it could be licensed that provides the 
> same flexibility without requiring modification of each file?  Perhaps 
> an active dual license?
>
> Additionally, it appears that the 1.4.3 release tarball lacks a copy 
> of either license (GPL or JOSL) or a central license declaration.  
> Could a central license declaration and copies of the licenses be 
> added to the upcoming 1.4.4 release?  I believe such a notice would 
> help clarify the intended licensing.

Based on the recent concerns I began checking each Jabberd source file 
for license indication in the hopes of distributing Jabberd under the 
GPL or some other allowed license.  Unfortunately, what I found was a 
bit of a mess.  Bits of Jabberd are under a variety of different 
licenses and some don't indicate any license at all.  From what I've 
been able to find the files are listed under one of the following:
	- Modified Apache 1.0
	- BSD
	- JOSL
	- MPL v1.1
	- none
	- either JOSL or GPLv2+

I'm not up on all the interactions between the various licenses, but I 
have had a previous situation with  MPL and GPL interaction and they 
are considered by most to be incompatible.  Beyond this there is the 
concern of those files that don't provide any indicate of their 
license.

As the Jabberd source currently stands, I'm not sure the resultant 
binaries are distributable at all due to the various licenses and/or 
lack there of.

I've attached a complete file listing of the 1.4.3 source grouped by 
indicated license (or lack thereof).  I've also grouped several files 
that don't indicate a license but I'm not sure they need to (generated 
Makefiles, short scripts, READMEs, etc).

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-- 
Jamin W. Collins