These are prompted by Gerrit review comments, but it seems like a hidden place to discuss them.
The specific background: A task I am on uses an external library licensed under the Apache2.0 license. Mediawiki core is shipped under a GPL2 license, so I'm guessing that is the default licence fondation work is released under.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_License#GPL_compatibilityApache licenses are compatible with GPL3 but not GPL2.
The questions: Is my assumption that by default we put everything under GPL2 right? Are other FS/OSS licences OK to use? How paranoid are we? ie do we make a good faith effort at getting it right, or do we refer questions to internal counsel for a slower but safer answer?
In this case my inclination is to licence the whole extension (containing the external library) as Apache2.0 but I'm happy to defer to normal process if there is one.
Thanks,
Luke Welling
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Luke Welling lwelling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The questions: Is my assumption that by default we put everything under GPL2 right? Are other FS/OSS licences OK to use?
Generally, I think the consensus has been "GPLv2 preferred, but any FLOSS license is probably ok." I know there's more than a few extensions that are Apache or MIT licensed.
How paranoid are we? ie do we make a good faith effort at getting it right, or do we refer questions to internal counsel for a slower but safer answer?
We just assume good faith :)
In this case my inclination is to licence the whole extension (containing the external library) as Apache2.0 but I'm happy to defer to normal process if there is one.
If you can't use an Apache library in a GPL extension, then licensing the whole extension as Apache is probably fine.
-Chad
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org