Migrate to MIT License

[cweagans]

I'm wanting to include Bootstrap in a Drupal distribution that I'm working on. Because I'm using the Drupal.org packaging system, I cannot include Bootstrap because the APLv2 is not compatible with GPLv2 (which is what all code on Drupal.org must be licensed as, per our license policy: http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q4)

I was wondering if you'd be willing to either release Bootstrap under another license (in parallel to the Apache license) that would be compatible with our packaging system, or license Bootstrap specifically to Drupal.org contributors under a compatible license.

[caniszczyk]

I believe the code on Drupal.org is under the GPLv2 or later, which is fine.

"Apache 2 software can therefore be included in GPLv3 projects, because the GPLv3 license accepts our software into GPLv3 works." [1]

[1] - http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html

[cweagans]

Nope - everything is licensed as GPLv2 right now. When the packaging system puts things together, it includes the GPLv2 license, and APLv2 cannot be relicensed as GPLv2.

[Crell]

Drupal.org is GPLv2-and-later. We do not permit GPLv3-only code at this time. APL is only compatible with GPLv3, not v2.

cweagans, you may want to see if we can allow a GPLv3 library via the auto-packager for distributions. I'm not sure if that team will accept a GPLv3 library in that case. If not, then yes something GPLv2-compatible would be necessary.

[caniszczyk]

I'm all for finding ways to make this work. There's pretty much no chance the bootstrap license will ever change. Is there a way we can have Drupal move to the newer version of GPLv3? http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v3HowToUpgrade

I'd be willing to put in some cycles to talk to the right people over in Drupal land to make this work.

[cweagans]

There's no chance of licensing it under an additional license? That is, it would be concurrently available under APL and (some other license that's compatible with our packaging system).

If not, I'd guess that Crell is at least one of the people to talk to - he's the licensing guy for the Drupal Association. He'd probably know who else to talk to about it. I imagine that there will be a significant amount of pushback on this, though...changing the license of Drupal and every single contrib project on Drupal.org is no easy task.

[Crell]

Changing Drupal's license from GPLv2 to GPLv3 would be a very simple change administratively/legally and a monumental task culturally. It's not something that's going to happen any time soon, although I would like to see it happen eventually for various reasons.

[caniszczyk]

I understand that pain well, isn't the GPL wonderful?

I would advise that the drupal.org community look at having module authors choose between the GPLv2 or v3 license, this would then allow folks to embed Apache licensed code into their projects without issues. The APLv2 is a very liberal license.

In the end, I'm all for making this work somehow. I mean, according the Drupal FAQ [1], you're able to redistribute Drupal under the v2 or v3 license of the GPL so I don't see why this is an issue to begin with.

[1] - http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q1

[Crell]

Because there are GPLv2-only libraries out there that people want to be able to integrate as well. :-) There's unfortunate subtly involved that I have the misfortune of having been the point person to sort out.

We want the code coming off of Drupal.org to always be legally compatible with code coming off of Drupal.org. Many modules bridge to other 3rd party libraries. Some of those are GPLv2 only, some are GPLv3 only. Therefore, to get the widest possible compatibility we require that Drupal.org code be GPLv2-AND-later. The option of which to use is made by the receiver, NOT the module developer. It cannot be, or else you could end up with a GPLv2-only module and a GPLv3-only module, both on d.o, and then that's just a total fail because you couldn't distribute them together.

Yes, this causes issues for APLv2 code. Bootstrap is not the first time we've seen this. At some point I do want us to move to GPLv3, but that is not on the table for the foreseeable future. Licensing changes for Drupal.org are not worth discussing here, as that boat takes too long to turn.

[cweagans]

I suspected that a licensing change for Drupal.org code would be painful, but I had to hold out hope. So, given that, is there any chance at all of distributing Bootstrap under an additional license that might be a little more friendly to our packaging system?

I know of at least three projects (including mine) that would love to be able to include Bootstrap, but cannot due to the license. http://drupal.org/project/twitter_bootstrap and http://drupal.org/sandbox/rerooting/1429486 and http://drupal.org/project/droptracker. I suspect that more projects would use Bootstrap if it were easily included by our packaging system.

[mdo]

Let's ask @caniszczyk about this stuff.

[cweagans]

He's been commenting on this issue already ;)

It would be really awesome if Bootstrap could be distributed under anything compatible with the GPLv2 license along with the current Apache license.

[mdo]

Totally missed that one! Sounds like it's not really an issue then?

[cweagans]

@markdotto, I don't follow. It's still certainly an issue - please read all of the comments on this issue.

[caniszczyk]

Changing the license of Bootstrap isn't practical given that the APLv2 is already a very permissive license and already allows Bootstrap to be embedded in all sorts of commercial and non-commercial applications. I would advise that the Drupal community take a better stance on adopting the GPLv3 and the mixing of libraries. Technically, Bootstrap can be considered a separate program (or in Drupal's case, a module) so mixing it shouldn't be an issue depending on your interpretation. Also, Bootstrap can be used by folks who run Drupal modules on their own server. It's only in the case of drupal.org that this is an issue.

It would be good to start turning the boat sooner than later. It's nice to give your users a choice in the matter.