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Apache 2.0 License compatibility

One little question:
Can I use Ice in my Apache 2.0 licensed open source project? ( DF Daemon).
On this project Ice can be used mostly as crosslanguage rmi.
As mentioned in http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html gpl not permit to link with noncompatible licenses.

Are there any chances to get special exception, that permits Ice to use with Apache with some restrictions? Or, may be, You can answer, why no chances? :rolleyes:

Comments

  • Ok. Looks like wrong question... 22 views, but no answers :(.

    Let requestion in another form:

    If independent developer want to develop opensource non-profit non-commercial application with nonGPL license (and license can't be GPL for some reasons) what can be done in this situation?
    I see three ways:
    1. Don't use Ice at all (bad, because Ice wants to be worldwide standard, and personally I like Ice)
    2. Get personal permission from from ZeroC (or buy :eek:? for non-profit project)
    3. Write own subset of Ice (nonacceptable, because it is more complex task, compare to most non-profit home-made projects)

    Please, answer :rolleyes:.
  • The main point is this:

    Please note that this discussion only benefits third parties that produce GPL-covered products. The Apache Software Foundation does not allow its own projects to distribute software under licenses more restrictive than the Apache License, and the Free Software Foundation does not distribute software under the Apache License.

    (This is from http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html)

    So while we could grant permission to link certain software released under the Apache license with Ice, it would still mean that the resulting work would have to be released under GPL. You could not release your software under the
    Apache license.
  • I got the point. I can make core part of the application, f.e. daemon, under Apache, but it shouldn't containt any Ice dependencies. Then I can make daemon extension with Ice support, and result work will be another project, f.e. daemon-ice, and this result project should be under GPL? Looks complicated. Should this work? :cool:

    Thanks marc.
  • Yes, this works. Because of the "incompatible license" problem, we would still have to give you a "special permission" to link Ice with Apache software (like we do for OpenSSL) in the file ICE_LICENSE, but I don't see a problem with this.
  • Thanx :D. I'll look in this direction.