[jdom-interest] JDOM license evaluation

elephantwalker elephantwalker at home.com
Thu May 17 18:54:22 PDT 2001


the BSD license is the way most open-source software is distributed. The
other famous license is the linux-style license. With a bsd-style license,
anybody, anywhere, anytime can use the software and redistribute it with
another product anywhere, anytime to anybody. The other "open source"
license is severely restrictive...and essentially "un-distributable" by a
software organization, although service organizations can re-distribute
linux-style license'd material.

I haven't looked at jdom, but have assumed that it is a bsd style license
because of the caliber of the people writing it.

-----Original Message-----
From: jdom-interest-admin at jdom.org
[mailto:jdom-interest-admin at jdom.org]On Behalf Of Jon Baer
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:36 PM
To: jdom-interest
Subject: Re: [jdom-interest] JDOM license evaluation


Bryan Thale wrote:

> Here's a risk of using commercial software to consider:
> You may be forced by the vendor to "upgrade" to an inferior or buggy or
> bloated version of the software simply because they will no longer
> support the version you are using.  With open source software, you need
> never upgrade if you don't need or want to.  That is a particular
> advantage for embedded products.

I have a question, are you allowed to technically "repackage" JDOM into
another open source (or eventually hopefully commercial) entity into
your own package?

I have this problem with open source in that its cool to learn alot from
it and embedd it into your stuff and watch it work, but I have always
been afraid of what legal obligations there are in that you are a
developer and understand the building blocks you are putting in and
would be open to supporting it yourself because you know what is happend
and can edit to fit your needs (its biggest advantage) but A) want to
fully respect the people who created the original in the first place B)
feel that you contributions eventually turn it into another product or
type of that product or fork of that product that you dont feel
obligated anymore.

Are there any open resources on the web that specifically cover these
subjects?  I want someone to look over my www.alicebot.net project.

- Jon

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