I see your point - they want you to purchase a license if you do not want to
release the source of your application.
It is sort of like a contaminant license - if you know what I mean. This is
not a true free and open source library - pity that.
I saw the word open source & java and assumed it to be really free like GPL
or apache. my bad.
You can still contact them and ask if there is a way around.
But again you are not redistributing the software that you are creating
right. I mean you are not forking the SVNKit code base and marketing it as a
better svnkit or something - so not sure what exactly is redistributing -
certainly making api calls to integrate svnkit into your application cannot
be called redistribution, else "every" application that uses svnkit would
have the same issue and that cannot be too good from a licensing point of
view.
On Dec 31, 2007 11:11 AM, Garret Wilson <garret@globalmentor.com> wrote:
> Anoop kumar V wrote:
> > No, you do not have to "open source" your application. At the very
> > least, you would have to include the note (copyright notice and/or
> > disclaimer) and a pointer where the latest source code can be obtained
> > from.
> ...
>
> > As I understand, you will be a client to the SVNKit libraries - and
> > not really modifying the source code of SVNKit ie., you will only be
> > calling the API from within your web application.
>
> That all sounds good, but unfortunately that's not what the SVNKit
> license at http://svnkit.com/license.html says. In particular:
>
> "Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how
> to obtain complete source code for the software that uses SVNKit and any
> accompanying software that uses the software that uses SVNKit."
>
> It doesn't matter whether I'm modifying the SVNKit source code or not.
> If I redistribute SVNKit, I must provide access to the source code of my
> "software that uses SVNKit". In fact, I even have to open-source
> "software that uses the software that uses SVNKit".
>
> It is unclear whether deploying a web application using SVNKit is
> "redistribution" of SVNKit under the license, as the license does not
> define "redistribution". But either way, I don't see how the text of the
> license can support your interpretation above.
>
> Garret
>
Received on Mon Dec 31 21:05:16 2007