[udig-devel] EPL, UDIG and Geotools license

[Aleksander Bandelj]

The reason for incompatibility is that clauses in the EPL regarding 
patents state an additional restriction that is forbidden by the GNU 
licenses. But now I think this is a non-issue for UDIG. In worst case, 
it can be worked around (usual IANAL disclaimer applies).

I found a clear explanation at (note, IANAL and for stricter GPL license) :

http://lists.osuosl.org/pipermail/darcs-users/2005-April/007050.html

<quote>

The Eclipse Public License is GPL-incompatible *only* because of it has a
clause disallowing people from using Eclipse while suing other people for
patent infringement of a patent that applies to Eclipse.  The GPL requires
that you allow other people to use the software freely (even if those people
are currently suing you for patent infringement).  Therefore, you cannot
redistribute a combined work comprising a GPL'ed component (use this 
combined
work freely, even if you are suing me for patent infringement of a 
patent that
applies to this software) with an Eclipse component (use freely, unless you
are suing me for etc.),
...
If the copyright holders of darcs wanted to allow people to distribute 
Eclipse
combined with darcs, they could amend the darcs license with a "special
exception" that says you are allowed to redistribute darcs combined with
EPL'ed software.  This would not, as far as I know, violate the intent of
David Roundy and the others that darcs be GPL'ed.  In particular, doing this
would *not* allow darcs to be used as a module in a proprietary combined 
work.
...
So in short, darcs *could* be legally combined with Eclipse if either 
(a) the
copyright holders of darcs said so in a legally binding way or (b) the FSF
published a new version of GPL which was compatible with EPL.

In the meantime, you are still allowed to *use* Eclipse combined with 
darcs on
your own system, you are just not allowed to redistribute it to other 
people.

</quote>

-a

Paul Ramsey wrote:
> http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
>
> Yes, I see nothing in the EPL that prevents us from distributing our 
> unmodified version of RCP along with the uDig plugins. I suppose 
> people might need clarification that the RCP portion of the 
> distribution is under EPL and the uDig portion is under LGPL.
>
> The declaration of "incompatibility" seems to arise from a scenario 
> where I take RCP, fork it, and try to relicense and distribute it 
> under GPL. That situation they would deem in violation of EPL.
>
> P
>
> Andrea Antonello wrote:
>> I second you about the fact that talking without license background is
>> just producing entropy for nothing. So I agree to stop on this without
>> some good base (never met one with good license base until now anyway).
>> What to say about the green gooey ones... they chase me... they always
>> chase me... :)
>
>

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