The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and JBoss are at odds over various sections of code in the Geronimo and JBoss application servers.
JBoss, the company which provides services based around the open-source application server of the same name, started the discussion when it wrote a letter to the ASF last year, claiming that its Geronimo project had incorporated JBoss code without following its licence terms, and was therefore in breach of its intellectual property.
ASF wrote an official response to this letter two weeks ago, claiming that Geronimo project is not in breach of JBoss' IP rights, as Apache developers had originally written the code. In this letter Ceki Gulku, the founder and developer of the Apache Log4J project, one of the projects which JBoss had claimed was in breach of its copyright, said that the opposite was true -- JBoss was in breach of Apache's IP rights.
"In summary, the source code incriminated by Exhibit A [a section of code which JBoss claimed Apache had copied] existed at the Apache Software Foundation at least 6 months before it made its first appearance at JBoss," said Gulku. "I cannot see how JBoss LLC has any valid claims against the ASF for this particular code. In fact, it appears that by neglecting to attribute the code and follow the Apache License for this example, the violation of copyright would be the exact reverse."
But, Sacha Labourey, European general manager at JBoss, said on Friday that ASF's letter has not satisfactorily answered its concerns and claims that ASF is still in breach of its copyright. "There answer is not very satisfying -- our lawyers are due to respond," said Labourey. He said that this is an important matter as the Apache license is more permissive than the JBoss license. "We don't accept Geronimo taking code from our licence and putting it in a very open licence," said Labourey, "Our license is not for fun, its important."
JBoss is licensed under the Lesser Gnu Public License (LGPL) which prohibits closed-source additions to JBoss. The Apache license does not have this requirement, although it does require that anyone using the code attributes the ASF.
Geir Magnusson, the director of ASF, refuted Labourey's claim saying that the ASF letter goes into detail about why it has not breached JBoss' IP rights and said that Apache take IP issues very seriously.
JBoss' Labourey said that not only was ASF's response unsatisfactory, but he was surprised that ASF had made the matter public. "We sent a letter -- it was a private letter at first and they decided to publicise it," said Labourey. He went on to say that he was unhappy that ASF had taken a year to respond to its original letter. "It took them one year to answer it. We were disappointed that it took them this time."
ASF's Magnusson responded that it had a responsibility to make the matter public as it is a voluntary organisation. "JBoss is a company and being a company they can do things in private. Apache is voluntary community project so we tend to do everything in a public form. There was no way to discuss this, without getting everyone's input."
Magnusson also refuted the claim that it had taken too long, saying that it completed the investigation and put the first summary on its Web site on 17 November, 2003 -- 17 days after JBoss' original letter. He said the legal letter took longer, as once it had established there was no legal issue it took its time and the letter was reviewed numerous times before being sent. "Once we had verified that there were no legal problems we didn't rush the letter," said Magnusson. "If there was a problem we would have taken quick and public action."
