<div> I'm working on an open-source project where Spread looks to be a great fit for a distributed, shared-memory architecture. However, after thoroughly reviewing the open-source license, I sense potential conflict, as this project is already GPL licensed.<br>
</div><div><br></div><div> Based on my understanding, the Spread license is based on the original BSD license w/ advertising clause. This BSD license is documented as incompatible with the GPL license (see <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/<span class="il" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204); background-position: initial initial; ">license</span>-list.html)</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; ">. However, without the advertising clause, the (modified) BSD license is compatible with GPL.</span></span></div>
<div><br></div><div>At this point, it seems I won't be able to use Spread due to this small, but sticky, advertising clause. This is very disappointing. Or perhaps I have overlooked something?</div><div><br></div><div>
Even the "alternate" license (<a href="http://www.spread.org/license/apache_log_license.txt">http://www.spread.org/license/apache_log_license.txt</a>) for web-service logging-only purposes seems too broad, also including the advertising clause. (Also, the alternate license is out of date, referencing Spread 3.13 or earlier; I assume all users would be using Spread 3.17.4 or 4.0, given that these were released ~3 years ago.)</div>
<div><br></div><div> Although I understand motivation to promote Spread toolkit and protect intellectual rights via the current license advertising clause, I wonder whether this may detriment continued adoption and growth of Spread in open-source communities.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I have noticed that a variety of open-source Spread-based projects, such as mod_log_spread or Spread client interfaces in different languages, seem to out-of-date or unsupported. This seems unusual given the apparently strong community interest just 2-3+ years ago. I suspect at this point that, at least within open-source communities, interest in Spread may have diminished some. I've been wondering why.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Maybe it's due to potentially competitive messaging alternatives, such as OpenAIS or AMQP, for which most (if not all) implementations are GPL-licensed, exist today and have growing user bases. Although these are generally suited for more classic enterprise message-style architectures, the overlap is significant enough for many common messaging projects to make small nuances as licensing a decision point.</div>
<div><br></div><div> Is there any interest in developing a dual-GPL/BSD Spread open-source license? A GPL license would allow other GPL projects to build on the Spread toolkit. The BSD license could remain unmodified, as it has its place for environments wishing to internally modify the Spread source for custom applications.</div>
<div><br></div><div> I assume most customers interested in a serious (enterprise) Spread deployment will consider encrypted communication and commercial support. Thus, any customer planning an enterprise-level deployment of a GPL'ed project built on Spread may have interest in purchasing a commercial Spread license. This seems like a win-win situation for all parties, both increasing potential Spread user-base and financially supporting Spread toolkit development.</div>
<div><br></div><div> I personally have found Spread's semantics and general ease of installation and setup to be preferable to most other messaging frameworks. Also, the existence of generally stable client interfaces in most popular languages makes for easy adoption and portability.</div>
<div><br></div><div> It seems this topic came up a few times in the spread-users group over the last several years, but without much discussion (if any). Perhaps most Spread users today are commercially-licensed, and the open-source community is a significant minority?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>Eric</div><div><br></div>