[wp-hackers] Apache 2.0 License?

[Mike Schinkel]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the detailed reply. 

So we are writing a plugin from scratch for a well-loved SaaS vendor and need to incorporate charts at their request. We looked at flot which includes Apache 2.0 excanvas. Explicitly, since you talk of relaxing, would including flot in a plugin keep that plugin out of the WordPress plugin repository?

-Mike


On Mar 19, 2011, at 7:18 PM, Mark Jaquith <markjaquith at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Mike Schinkel
> <mikeschinkel at newclarity.net> wrote:
>> This question[1] got me thinking. It seems that excanvas[2] is becoming a standard dependency for Javascript charting libraries but it is licensed with Apache 2.0, not GPL 2.
>> 
>> The core question I'm asking is would a plugin that is otherwise GPL licensed be denied inclusion into the WordPress plugin repository if it includes excanvas because of the Apache 2.0 license? Or given the circumstances would the potential license conflicts be overlooked?
> 
> Official answer: As Pete pointed out, The Apache 2.0 license is not
> compatible with the GPL version 2. So that does not meet the current
> licensing criterion, which is that the license be compatible with the
> GPL version 2.
> 
> I'm still deliberating about whether to relax that criterion to allow
> GPLv3-only or GPLv3+ (or compatible) code. We're already in the
> situation where some plugin directory code is GPLv2-only instead of
> GPLv2+, so combining that plugin code with WordPress already requires
> care.
> 
> If you're writing a plugin, and are able to, I strongly urge to to
> license it as "GPLv2 or any later version" (GPLv2+) or just as "GPL,
> any version," as that allows for maximum flexibility.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Jaquith
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