[Rxtx] Proposal 3.0; Apache and LGPL license for the RXSL

[Trent Jarvi]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia wrote:

> At 11:43 04/08/2006, Julien Vermillard wrote:
>> Le jeudi 03 août 2006 à 05:17 -0600, Trent Jarvi a écrit :
>>> On Thu, 3 Aug 2006, Julien Vermillard wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I'm a developer of the Apache MINA framework. It's a network application
>>>> framework which helps users develop high performance and high
>>>> scalability network applications easily.
>>>> http://directory.apache.org/subprojects/mina/index.html . I would like
>>>> to integrate serial connection to the framework (actualy supporting TCP,
>>>> UDP (broadcast) and in VM communications), but LGPL is an issue for me.
>>>>
>>>> An Apache License would be pretty usefull for me and integrate rxtx
>>>> functionnalities easly.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Julien
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Julien
>>>
>>> The rxtx license itself will not change.  This is just the interface.
>>> You would be free to implement an rxtx replacement if the LGPL low level
>>> code is a problem for you.  These licensing details would make it possible
>>> to take the interface code instead of needing to recode them for a new
>>> project.
>>>
>>> You are probably confusing the license problems with the GPL not the LGPL
>>> though you can share links to concerns off the list if you would like to
>>> go through them.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Trent Jarvi
>>> tjarvi at qbang.org
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm not a license expert but some guys at ASF said me you can't call
>> LGPLed libs from java. some peoples interprete that as static linking
>> and not dynamic linking (no idea why).
>
> This interpretation is wrong. See the official position of the FSF regarding
> the LGPL and Java:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/lgpl-java.html
>

What I do with legal groups that go down that rat hole is give them a copy 
of the rxtx 2.0 license.  Since the confused legal folks are going in a 
direction that does not represent the intent of the license or authors at 
that point and are confused about basic things in our industry that most 
consider facts, the discussions are very short.

The rxtx 2.0 license just adds the following and has for 6 years or so. 
Not because the lawyers are right.  They get confused about intent and 
even facts.   The following is added to make confused lawyers that cant 
understand intent go far away and never come back.  period.


|   The following has been added to allow RXTX to be distributed with Sun
|   Microsystem's CommAPI library as suggested by the FSF.
|
|   http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingOverControlledInterface
|
|   A program that contains no derivative of any portion of RXTX, but
|   is designed to work with RXTX by being compiled or linked with it,
|   is considered a "work that uses the Library" subject to the terms and
|   conditions of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
|
|   As a special exception, the copyright holders of RXTX give you
|   permission to link RXTX with independent modules that communicate with
|   RXTX solely through the Sun Microsytems CommAPI interface, regardless of
|   the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute
|   the resulting combined work under terms of your choice, provided that
|   every copy of the combined work is accompanied by a complete copy of
|   the source code of RXTX (the version of RXTX used to produce the
|   combined work), being distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General
|   Public License plus this exception.  An independent module is a
|   module which is not derived from or based on RXTX.
|
|   Note that people who make modified versions of RXTX are not obligated
|   to grant this special exception for their modified versions; it is
|   their choice whether to do so.  The GNU Lesser General Public License
|   gives permission to release a modified version without this exception; this
|   exception also makes it possible to release a modified version which
|   carries forward this exception.