Re: Java Git (aka jgit) library switching license to BSD/EPL

From: Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: May 9, 2008, 23:38 UTC
Message-ID: <20080509233828.GE29038@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0805091214170.23581@xanadu.home>

Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Thu, 8 May 2008, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
> 
> > Nico, Linus, Junio, Daniel, Dscho, et.al.:
> > 
> >   We would appreciate it if you could provide a statement saying
> >   you have no current copyright ownership interest in jgit, and that
> >   you do not currently own nor invented any patents related to the
> >   "Git technology" that this code might need to use to function as
> >   a Git implementation.
> 
> I do not have any such copyright nor patent claims for the jgit code.
> 
> As long as the C version remains the authoritative reference 
> implementation for protocol and data format,

I don't think anyone is going to argue with that. Its very unlikey that jgit would unseat C git as the Git implementation used by everyone. But I do hope that jgit grows more in popularity as more people come to Git, especially Java users/developers.

> and any algorithmic 
> improvements made to the jgit source can be merged back into the C 
> version using the GPL, then I have no issue with the license used by 
> jgit either.

This shouldn't be a problem. We're moving to a 3-clause BSD. As I understand it, anyone can take code under a 3-clause BSD license, make a few changes, and release the modified version under the GPL, and the original BSD project can't take those changes back in due to the changes being licensed under the GPL. From what I have read this has happened several times in the Linux kernel with code obtained from *BSD.

So long as someone is willing to port the improved algorithm across langauges from Java->C, even if it is a direct translation, it can still be included in C Git.

Thanks for the reply Nico (and everyone else), it is most appreciated.

-- 
Shawn.