Licensing

[Mike Lodder]

The Apache 2.0 license has patent termination and indemnification
provisions that GPL or LGPL do not have.
We initially do not plan to modify the GMP code, just to include it in our
code. The problem with LGPL is not that I link to it dynamically, but when
I must link statically, which is what happens when developing for mobile
market. Apple requires all libraries by statically linked.

We eventually want to contribute to GMP and give code back and not retain
changes. We have no problem with that.
We hope our crypto code will be widely adopted. The crypto code we write is
not symmetric ciphers or public key crypto, its zero-knowledge proofs,
pairings based crypto, zkSNARKs and eventually STARKS.

Everything at Hyperledger is licensed under Apache 2.0 and that's the main
reason for the petition for a license change.

On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 AM Marco Bodrato <bodrato at mail.dm.unipi.it>
wrote:

> Il Ven, 21 Settembre 2018 6:19 pm, Mike Lodder ha scritto:
> > I write crypto code that uses big number libraries and would like to
> adopt
> > GMP but cannot because it was GPL and is now LGPL. While LGPL is less of
> a
> > problem, its limits adoption for what we want to use it for.
>
> Let's say it was LGPL and is now also GPL2+.
>
> LGPL is highly permissive, isn't it? Any code (with no requirements) can
> link to the compiled library, and you can distribute the library if you
> agree to share, with the people you give the library to, the freedom you
> received.
>
> If, on the other side, there are limitations that force your project to be
> incompatible with LGPL3... well, I'd suggest you to ask for a change on
> that other side. Did you try that?
>
> > We are looking to use Libsnark <https://github.com/scipr-lab/libsnark>
> for
> > zero-knowledge proofs. Libsnark uses GMP. Libsnark is licensed under MIT.
>
> > Would you consider also licensing GMP using Apache 2.0?
>
> GPL3 and LGPL3 already are compatible with MIT and Apache2, aren't they?
>
> > I believe with this license change that adoption of GMP will be
> > even greater.
>
> Well, but the Apache 2.0 licence "include certain patent termination and
> indemnification provisions"... Maybe we (GMP and your project) should use
> even another licence to enlarge the adoption of our code also to people
> that will cover with a patent their "contributions", should we?
>
> I personally hope that the code I wrote will be covered with copyleft
> licences only also in the future.
>
> Ĝis,
> m
>
> --
> http://bodrato.it/papers/
>
>

-- 
Mike Lodder
Security Maven