[Zlib-devel] zlib and LZMA

[Mark Adler]

On Aug 2, 2006, at 10:54 PM, Damien Miller wrote:
>> The full license is below.  I would be negotiating with Igor a
>> simpler license that still provides the constraints he requires.
>
> Wow, this is really confusing. I respect your right to license your
> code however you choose, but please reconsider adding restrictions to
> the zlib license. Zlib has become so ubiquitous because of its simple
> and very liberal license. Speaking as an OpenBSD/OpenSSH developer, we
> certainly won't use or import new code whose licenses add  
> restrictions,
> as we want to make it as easy as possible for commercial vendors to
> ship our code.

I envision making zlib available with and without LZMA, so the  
current deflate-only zlib under the current zlib license would still  
be available.  However I would work with Igor (who is on this mailing  
list) to make the license with LZMA as palatable as possible for all  
users including commercial users.  The only difference will be that  
the LZMA cannot be modified by the commercial user for use in their  
product without providing those modifications back to us for open  
distribution.

>> 2) Common Public License (CPL)
>
> FYI the CPL has a particularly pernicious clause (#4) ...

In particular, part of making it palatable would be to avoid any  
reference at all to GNU licenses.  I believe that that is quite  
doable given Igor's requirements on the license.  I agree with the  
fear of the legal diseases built-in to the GNU licenses.

mark