Licensing LGPL vs Apache

[Martin]

Hi everyone,

An interesting question came up earlier, the Apache HBase project wants to use lanterna for a new utility program (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-11062) but as Lanterna is licensed under LGPL 3.0, they are not able to use it. Turns out Apache projects are not allowed to even depend on LGPL software. They are asking if we can re-license it under Apache 2.0 or MIT instead.

My understanding of the difference between the two is that LGPL, while open source, requires you to publish your changes if you change the code. Apache license pretty much allows you to do what you want with the code and you don't need to publish the source if you distribute a derived version.

Since HBase probably wouldn't need to modify Lanterna in any way, it's kind of silly that they are not allowed to use it by their own rules. My suspicion is that Apache projects has to follow the same open source rules for the entire software including dependencies. So in a way they brought this on themselves and it isn't really our problem that they have forced this rules upon themselves.

However.

I chose LGPL way back years ago because that was the license I knew, it seemed to make sense and it was pretty defensive. I think up until this point, if I had chosen Apache or MIT license then probably nothing would have been different. Many individuals have contributed code to Lanterna over the years but it's usually because they wanted to help fix bugs or share something new they wrote, not really the LGPL case of modifying the library code and then being legally required to share that change. I also rely a lot of various Apache projects both privately and professionally so the idea of them using this pet project of mine has a good feeling to it.

I understand re-licensing is technically really difficult as all the contributed code is under LGPL and cannot really be re-licensed unless I get every contributor to agree, but if we take that aside for a moment... Are there anyone with strong opinions about this licensing question or thoughts about why it's better to turn them down and stick to LGPL?

Regards,

Martin

[jpavel]

Hi Martin,

I'm not a lanterna contributor, but I've been following and using the project for a number of years, and I think it would be great if it were pulled in as a dependency to Apache HBase.  I also use Apache projects in pretty much all my programs, and share your good feeling about them.

Having HBase use lanterna would put it on a lot more systems out there and bring greater visibility, and perhaps contributions, to the project. I don't think that lanterna is the type of library that encourages proprietary modification for commercial gain, so even commercial actors would probably be likely to contribute any improvements.

Best,

Jesse