XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Luca Passani <passani AT eunet.no>]

Apologies if I jump into the discussion this late, but I have a few 
points to raise:

- Have you considered the MPL (Mozilla Public License)?
  http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/

  MPL is supposed to be the same as LGPL in practice, with the added 
advantage that it explicitly
  deals with intellectual property issues, which is essential for 
companies that want to include
  open-source libraries in commercial products without jeopardizing 
their patent portfolio.
  I had a chat about this with Californian lawyers when I launched an 
open-source project
 on behalf of my company 3 years ago. Californian lawyers' advice was 
clear: stay away from anything
 like GPL and the like if you have an IP portfolio to protect.

- GPL with Library Exception
  Quite frankly, I think that's not an alternative *no matter what*. 
Here is why.
  All of those open-source licences are virtually the same, since none 
of them has been challenged in court.
  For example, in the unlikely event that someone tried to sell a 
library which has a GPL license
  and was brave (and rich) enough to bring the litigation to the end, a 
tribunal could end up
  declaring such a license void, assuming that the defendant has good 
enough lawyers.
  For this reason, all of the discussions about licences have relative 
values. They are all good enough
  in a way, but ready to turn bad if sufficient amounts of corporate 
legal paranoia is applied.
  If you want to optimize your library for adoption (very important) 
and not for abuse (which would be a side effect
  of popularity, by the way), you would better stick to one of the 
well-known licences (GPL, LGPL,
  Apache, MPL, BSD). In other words, imagine that we all come the 
conclusion that "GPL with Library
  Exception" is the best possible choice for this project in terms of 
balance between everyone's freedom,
  BUT the programmer who would like to adopt it has to stick to company 
politics that
  says "no GPL". This would effectively mean that the  programmer is 
not allowed
  to adopt XOM since his company's legal department would not take the 
risk with a
  lesser known license and they have no cycles to evaluate a relatively 
uknown GPL-style license
  (in spite of the fact that it is 100% paranoia we are talking about). 
This could also have a viral
  effect on adoption of other libraries that depend on XOM.
 Also, I googled for "GPL with Library Exception" and the first 2 hits 
were the archives of the XOM-interest
 mailing list. This is not promising.

Thank you

Luca




Wolfgang Hoschek wrote:

> I'd be interested in what current XOM users would prefer as a license.
> So here's a grass roots poll to share related information.
> It appears unlikely that the outcome of the user poll will be taken 
> into consideration by Elliotte in any way, but the results might still 
> be interesting.
>
> If you have any opinion either way please reply with your ballot and 
> indicate which license you'd prefer, using a ranking from 1-5 (1 = 
> most preferred, 5 = least preferred) or "-" to indicate licenses you'd 
> reject.
>
> [] LGPL
> [] GPL with library exception
> [] GPL
> [] Apache or Apache style
> [] Other (please specify)
>
> Here's an example ballot, which at the same time is my own personal 
> ballot to get the ball rolling:
>
> [2] LGPL
> [-] GPL with library exception
> [-] GPL
> [1] Apache or Apache style
> [] Other (please specify)
>
> This means that I'd prefer XOM to have an Apache (or Apache style) 
> license over LGPL, and that I'd reject GPL or GPL with library exception.
>
> Thanks,
> Wolfgang.
>
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