Hibernate version:
2.1.6

Due to legal restrictions imposed by a customer who is extremely paranoid about both GPL and LGPL software, I am interested in buying a commercial license for Hibernate. I'm looking for something like MySQL's dual-licensing scheme. Note that I'm not just looking for commercial support, but for an actual commercial software license that does not require us to feed changes back to the Hibernate team.

Now, before someone jumps on me, I personally feel that the LGPL is sufficient and flexible enough that a commercial license is unecessary for how we intend to use it (as the ORM system in a J2EE application). I've read the License FAQ and do not see a need for a commercial license. However this customer's legal department is *extremely* paranoid about any use of open-source software, and about the GPL/LGPL in particular, and has basically told us that they would not allow any OSS software in the product.

So, what are my options?

Thanks in advance,
- Bill

send a mail to sales@jboss.com, but I'm not sure this is something they usually do.

Hibernate is only LGPL.

Our license is a distribution license, it says that any redistribution or any usage is not limited if you don't modify Hibernate. All of this is very very clear in the license text and the same as in a license you would get from a commercial software vendor. The LGPL has some additional clauses which only apply if you _modify_ Hibernate.

If a legal department doesn't understand this separation or can't understand the distribution rules, I'd say the experts in question are incompetent. Sorry :)

If you need more help, contact JBoss Inc. and we can set up a dialog between the legal experts.

P.S. Another option is to let them spend money for commercial software, they will come back at some point and realize that it was a mistake to build infrastructure on closed source. I know, this doesn't help you as a vendor for this customer right now...

Thanks for the quick reply! I haven't contacted them yet because this seems like more of a licensing issue on the Hibernate side, rather than a support issue from the JBoss side.

Thanks,
- Bill

No comment :)


Working for HP, I think that our lawyers have a pretty good grasp about OSS/GPL/LGPL/etc. I think this is going to come down to our lawyers arguing with their lawyers, and our dev team will suffer by having to either (a) write our own DAO layer, or (b) go with a less capable commercial product. Since I'm *on* the development team, I would prefer neither (a) or (b). We shall see.

In any case, again, I really appreciate the quick responses,
- Bill

It is indeed not a JBoss issue, Hibernate is and will be licensed only under LGPL. JBoss however can help you geting the facts straight for your customer.

I'm personally against dual-license software, actually, and I don't really think we want to get into that. But, if you get really desperate, chat with Ben Sabrin in Atlanta. I'm certainly not promising we can help you with this, but you could try, I suppose.

The mentions of checking with JBoss, Inc. lawyers to get such a license raised some questions for me. This is not a flame, and it is not idle curiosity. I would appreciate clarification.

On looking at the Hibernate source (2.1.6 download), I can find no copyright notice on the source or in any included file (other than the Apache copyrights on some of the incorporated Apache source).

I understand that Hibernate is distributed under the LGPL, but who is the actual grantor of that license? Who holds title/right to the code and is currently granting the LGPL to current users? and what entity should one approach to grant an alternative license? Would it in fact be JBoss, Inc.? (and why?)

Thanks,

--a.

Of course the copyright owners are the authors of the work. Just because they are not named doesn't mean they are not holding the copyright to their work! For your convience, we name the copyright holders in most of our Java source files, in the Javadoc @authors tag.

There is no alternative license, the complete Hibernate package is distributed under the LGPL. You may however contact JBoss Inc. or one of the copyright holders directly if you have questions about this.

Oh, the reason why you should contact JBoss Inc. with any questions is obvious: this company employs the majority of the copyright holders and offers not only services around Hibernate, but also legal advice if you have any questions about the LGPL.

And another note, the copyright notice is of course, as expected, in README.txt.

Thanks for your quick responses.

On second look at the top-level README.TXT in the hibernate-2.1.6 distribution, I still see no copyright notice, only the license grant notice.

However, your responses have clarified things for me in any case.
Thanks.

Well, its a distribution license notice, there is no need for a copyright notice. It is quite common (in most legal systems I know) that the copyright holder of a work retains his full rights without any explicit notice.