F21 System Wide Change: BerkeleyDB 6

[Jan Staněk]

Dne 16.4.2014 15:44, Petr Pisar napsal(a):
> On 2014-04-11, Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik at redhat.com> wrote:
>> = Proposed System Wide Change: BerkeleyDB 6 = 
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/BerkeleyDB_6
> [...]
>> The BerkeleyDB, used between others by rpm [1], changed license between 
>> versions 5.* and 6.* to AGPLv3+ from GPLv2+. As those two licenses are not 
>> compatible, packages using the BerkeleyDB either has to change its license to 
>> AGPLv3+ compatible, keep on using the older BerkeleyDB or use another DB 
>> entirely.
>>
> Does that mean than any GPL+ package linked to libdb-6 will have to
> change license to AGPLv3+? That would have significant impact not only
> on packagers but also on users.
>
I'm no lawyer, but as I understand it, any GPLv2+ package linked against
libdb-6 will need to change license - however, AFAIK it could change its
license to GPLv3+, because AGPLv3+ and GPLv3+ both have clauses that
make them compatible with each other ([1], [2]). On the other hand, the
clause [1] basically states (if I understood it correctly) that any such
combination is basically under AGPLv3+, so i don't know if it makes much
difference.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section13
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html#section13

-- 
Jan Stanek - Red Hat Associate Developer Engineer - Databases Team