ASL vs LGPL?

Stark

Hey all,

Could anyone tell me which is safer to use in my project? A library that has the Apache Software Licence or the Lesser General Public Licence?

I want to use Woodstox StAX jars, but I'm worried about things like having to redistribute licences with the jars and stuff.

aidan_walsh

Define "safer". You'll have to add the license text with both, AFAIK.

Stark

Well the licence is included in the jar itself so I think it's safe enough that way.

The program that utilises the jars could potentially become a small part of a commercial product so I was wondering could either licence have a problem with that. I know you're *allowed* use them, but some licences, eg: the XFree86 licence, require you to display the fact that you've used them in someplace prominent. And I'm no good with legaleese, so I wouldn't know whether the ASL or the LGPL is better in this regard.

For example, I think that the BSD licence is less restrictive than the GPL if you want to make commerical software from open-source.

rsynnott

You may want to look at the BSD or Mozilla licenses; they're good for commercial use. Windows still uses bits of the BSD tcp stack, but doesn't go out of its way to tell you this on the box, for instance. (There is an acknoledgement somewhere).