Re: License Question

Great find, Daniele! That appears to be true for GPLv3 but not LGPLv3
which is included on the Category X list. (Have to love how complex
licenses can get!)

From the Apache FAQs:

- Apache takes a strong approach against distributing any components
under prohibited licenses
<http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x> (i.e. Category
X), which includes LGPL. Therefore, we cannot even use LGPL licenses open
source in the project. This appears to be regardless of linking.
- While Apache projects cannot distribute Category X components within
their releases, a project can provide the user with instructions on how to
obtain and install the non-included work *if the component is only
needed for optional features. * In this case, optional means that the
component is not required for standard use of the product or for the
product to achieve a desirable level of quality. They recommend you ask,
“will the majority of users want to use my product without adding the
optional components?” In our case, it would not fit Apache’s definition of
“optional.”

Unfortunately, GPLv3 license would require us to release the entire project
as GPLv3 vs the other options that can be incorporated into an Apache
project while keeping the project under the Apache license. (
https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a and
https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b)

I really appreciate the dialogue as we work on understanding the options
and thanks for the tip on cross posting! I didn’t include pgsql-general on
this response.

Best,
Jamie

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 2:28 PM Daniele Varrazzo <daniele(dot)varrazzo(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 7:04 PM, Jamie Specter <jamie(dot)specter(at)gmail(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
> > I would love to use it in an Apache-licensed project but unfortunately,
> LGPL
> > licenses are not compatible with Apache 2.0.
> >
> > See here for more info:
> > https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
>
> Is this true? this page leads to
> <http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html>, which says:
>
> """
> This licensing incompatibility applies only when some Apache project
> software becomes a derivative work of some GPLv3 software, because
> then the Apache software would have to be distributed under GPLv3.
> This would be incompatible with ASF's requirement that all Apache
> software must be distributed under the Apache License 2.0.
> """
>
> Is your work a "derivative" of psycopg, or it merely uses psycopg? If
> you only want to use it you should be fine.
>
>
> -- Daniele
>
> P.S. certain Postgres mailing list don't tolerate cross-posting. I
> don't know about pgsql-general, but I would avoid it anyway.
>