Classpath Exception

[Stephen Chin]

I am considering changing the open-source license to make it less
restrictive, and thus more conducive to commercial users and enterprise
applications. I am interested in feedback from everyone on the
development list, but want to set the expectation clearly that the final
decision will be made by consensus of the code committers (you know who
you are).

Right now the license is GPLv3. This is one of the most widely used
open-source licenses, but is also "viral" in the sense that any
derivative works must also be GPL licensed. This not only limits
extensions or derived products, but by strict interpretation would also
require that all widgets be GPL licensed as well.

In order to encourage commercial and enterprise widget development, we
could add a "classpath exception" clause to the GPL license similar to
how the JRE is licensed by Sun. Here is an example of their wording:

"CLASSPATH" EXCEPTION TO THE GPL

Certain source files distributed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. are subject to
the following clarification and special exception to the GPL, but only where
Sun has expressly included in the particular source file's header the words
"Sun designates this particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception
as provided by Sun in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code."

Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making
a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of
the GNU General Public License cover the whole combination.

As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules,
and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your
choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module,
the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent
module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If
you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of
the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do
so, delete this exception statement from your version.

By adding a clause like this, it would make it possible to develop
commercial Widgets that depend upon the Widget API without violating the
terms of the license. If we also extended this licensing to the
container code, it would make derivative product possible as well (to
the extent which we expose APIs that are reusable).

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts and comments, and I am going to
drive forward with a decision by the end of this weekend.

Cheers,
--Steve

[Pär Dahlberg]

That sounds like a good idea.

Especially considering the part of restrictive licensing you wrote in
the article linked from this thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/widgetfx-dev/browse_thread/thread/b8f8f028aaed30e6?hl=en%3Fhl

/Pär

[Stephen Chin]

Guess this wasn't as interesting of a topic as I thought it might be. :-)

I chatted with Keith (the only other code contributor to date), and he
is fine with this license change, so I am going to update the codebase
appropriately.

Tell your friends and family about the new, more commercial-friendly,
WidgetFX licensing!

Cheers,
--Steve

[Pär Dahlberg]

Hehe... for some more attention you could look at the EXT-JS guys' playbook ;)

Sounds good!

/M v h Pär

[Joshua Marinacci]

Sounds good to me. I've been quite happy with the GPL + Classpath
(though in the case of Java code I'm not clear how it's different from
LGPL, but I hear that it is).

- J