[erlang-questions] Erlang/OTP, eunit and the LGPL

[Abhay Kumar]

I wish I paid a little more attention to the erlang-announce or I
would have probably raised this alarm earlier. I was wondering if it
would be possible to bundle eunit into the otp set of libraries under
the terms of a secondary less ambiguous license. Unfortunately for me
and many other entrenched coders, lawyers don't seem to have a clear
understanding of the language of the license and therefore categorize
it with other GPL licenses when determining policy. This is definitely
the case at Microsoft, my employer, and I know is also a common policy
in other large companies. Because of this, LGPL code either gets
quarantined or never used in such environments. By bundling eunit in
the OTP set of libraries, we open a door for ambiguity and start
restricting the adoption of Erlang in some larger companies.

The easiest option that I see would be if the ProcessOne folks decided
to grant the Erlang community use of the library under the EPL or
other comparable license, either by dual licensing it or just changing
the license terms. Until then, Folks in my position are unable to
upgrade erlang past R12B-4. I don't intend this message to start a
philosophical war over licenses. I just am pointing out the practical
implications that this change has for me and possibly for others in
similar situations. (Don't take Erlang away from me! Heh.)

- Abhay

P.S. I'm not a lawyer.

--
Abhay Kumar
http://opensynapse.net/

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