Re: iSeries apache is not open source?? was : Did IBM HijackApache????

[Martin Rowe <martin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 16:58, Steve Richter wrote:
> So the assumption is that IBM has taken the apache open source code, added
> iSeries specific code to it, and is shipping iSeries Apache without
> releasing the source code back to the public domain.

Apache is released under the Apache Software License[1] rather than
public domain software (which is essentially unlicensed, though may be
subject to copyright). There is no restriction on binary-only
redistribution.

> Isnt that unethical?  The spirit of the open source movement is that people
> make their source code available so that others can improve on it and in
> turn give the improved code back to the open source community.

Not all licenses require that source code must accompany/be available
with binaries. For example the BSD license(s) allow this (which is why
Microsoft approve of BSD licensing) but the GPL among others does not.
Personally I prefer the GPL or GPL style licenses, but authors are free
to license as they wish (and so it should be).

> fwiw, I am not too keen on open source because in practice it becomes free
> source.  But the free aspect does not pertain to IBM in this case.  Apache
> is shipped no charge as part of os400. Source or no source.

I would suspect that IBM do feed back some of their changes to the
Apache software foundation, even if we don't get the code ourselves. As
IBM will have to port their changes to each version of Apache as it
comes out (to keep in sync) it would make sense to keep those changes to
a minimum. Of course this is speculation on my part ;)

> And if iSeries apache is closed source, IBM is also detracting from the
> Apache brand name that it is benefiting from.   The marketplace trusts
> apache to be rock solid and portable because of its open source nature.  If
> iSeries apache is not open source then that claim is no longer true.

IBM market/describe their server as the IBM HTTP server based on Apache,
rather than actually calling it the Apache server. The license requires
that:

 * 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "Apache",
 *    nor may "Apache" appear in their name, without prior written
 *    permission of the Apache Software Foundation.

so I assume IBM have requested the use of 'based on Apache' from the group.

Regards, Martin
[1] http://www.apache.org/LICENSE.txt
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