OpenBSD Journal

More license troubles for OpenBSD team?

Contributed by jose on from the stupid-software dept.

zoc writes: "Mail from theo:



To: misc@openbsd.org
Subject: The new apache license
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:38:08 -0700
From: Theo de Raadt


And another license issue..

The new apache license is not acceptable.  Code written under that
new license will never go into our tree.

Look, I am quite frankly getting sick and tired of this.  It is time
for the user community to tell these software developers who have
gotten themselves involved with lawyers to stop it.  They are NOT
making their software better, they are NOT protecting anyone, and
they we NOT making their software any more free when they add new
terms.

As of this moment in time, therefore, it looks like the httpd in
OpenBSD has now become a fork.  It will continue to be managed  
under the existing license.



ciao"

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Chris () on

    OpenHTTPd anyone?

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward () on

      > OpenHTTPd anyone?

      Yup, start with BOA ...

      http://www.boa.org/

    2. By Anonymous Coward () on

      The apache httpd project is too massive and too popular for OpenHTTPD to make even a dent out there. Its not like ssh.com or ipf. If anything, I can see corporations dropping OpenBSD because it contains its own flavor of httpd.

      Comments
      1. By j0rd () mits_rox@OHNOS.hotmail.com on http://j0rd.ath.cx/

        I agree with the above statement. I think if the licence is truly incompatible, there will be a user backlash and it will be fixed. Boycotting apache is the best thing to do at the moment to get this stuff resolved.

      2. By Roo () on

        What's wrong with it being a port ? Most OpenBSD admins can handle ports. For those who can't I figure that a pre-built Apache package could be made available. Maybe I'm a freak, but I always liked how OpenBSD was lean and mean, stuff like Apache seemed to be overkill at best, superfluous at worst.

  2. By Tom Bortels () bortels@pacificnet.net on http://tom.pacificnet.net

    It appears that the worry about the new Apache v2.0 license being GPL-incompatable may be unfounded. Apache has posted a fairly thorough analysis here: http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility

    Theo never (in the posted mail, at least) explicitly said *why* the new license was unacceptable - I assume this hullaballoo is it. Does this fix things, or is there some other reason that it's unacceptable?

    Comments
    1. By van Rijn () on

      I'm not a license expert but I trust Theo and if he told me (via Mail) the new license is not useable then I'm sure he asked the right guys to think about the situation and at least to write such a mail.

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