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  1. Legal Discuss
  2. LEGAL-82

Is it ok to USE (rather than DISTRIBUTE) a Category-X dependency? If so, what, precisely, is allowed?

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    • Question
    • Status: Closed
    • Major
    • Resolution: Fixed
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    Description

      The Apache Isis project has recently entered the incubator, and we're sorting out dependencies. This is a Java project, built using Maven.

      In one of our modules we have an dependency (via Maven) to an LGPL dependency (Hibernate); in another we have a dependency to a Sleepycat dependency (Berkeley JE). I see that these are both "Category X" dependencies (http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x).

      In response to a question relating to something else, our mentor noted that "... if we are not distributing [an LGPL dependency] but only using it, then it would be no problem at all. LGPL projects might be used this way." (see http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-isis-dev/201010.mbox/%3C95888.7913.qm@web27803.mail.ukl.yahoo.com%3E).

      My question is: what exactly is allowed here? Specifically, does "USE" allow a <dependency> reference in a Maven POM, with a corresponding <repository> entry so that the end-user can download the dependency themselves.

      Not to tell a tale here, but I did note in googling that the Lucene project does seem to have a dependency on Berkeley JE, see http://lucene.apache.org/java/3_0_2/api/contrib-bdb-je/org/apache/lucene/store/je/JEDirectory.html. I don't know if they're "USEing" the dependency in the appropriate way? It would seem like we want to do what Lucene is doing.

      Many thanks,
      Dan

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            Unassigned Unassigned
            danhaywood Daniel Keir Haywood
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