users@jersey.java.net

[Jersey] Jersey licence - why GPL v2?

From: Borg, Andreas <borga_at_uni-mainz.de>
Date: Mon, 6 May 2013 15:43:30 +0000

Dear fellow users of Jersey (and hopefully the developers are also on this list),

is there a specific reason why Jersey is available under exactly version 2 of the GPL, and not under "version 2 or later"? We want to link to Jersey as well to some Apache libraries (under Apache licence 2.0) in a project, which we want to distribute under GPL. However, linking to Jersey would require us to use GPL 2 (CDDL is not compatible with GPL at all and without the statement "or later" GPL 2 code cannot be transformed to GPL 3), while the Apache licence of the other libs is only compatible to GPL 3. Thus, there is no legal way to distribute software linking to, for example, Jersey and Apache HttpComponents. I cannot see why this situation could be desirable. Is there any chance that Jersey will become available under GPL 3 in the near future? Or is there any alternative to allow this combination?

Thanks and best regards,

Andreas Borg
Abteilung Medizinische Informatik

Universitätsmedizin der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Institut für Med. Biometrie, Epidemiologie und Informatik (IMBEI)
Obere Zahlbacher Straße 69, 55131 Mainz

Tel: +49 (0) 6131 17-5062

E-Mail: andreas.borg_at_unimedizin-mainz.de<mailto:andreas.borg_at_unimedizin-mainz.de>