jasperreports 6 / itext 5 Affero licensing catch

[thibault.kruse]

Hi,

I notice jasperreports 6.0.0 uses itext 5.0.5, which is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.

In contarst to jasperreport 5.x which used itext 2.1.x being licensed under MPL (though legal status seems unclear).

Is it correct to say that thus upgrading from jasperreport 5.x to jasperreport 6.x means that the strong copyleft restrictions of GNU Affero General Public License version 3 will start to apply to client code of jasperreport? Or am I missing something?

I ask this because the jasperreports 6.0.0 release notes (readme file) do not mention this, even though this introduces legal risks to users of jasperreports.

 

[Teodor Danciu]

Hi,

Jaspersoft products use and distribute iText 5.5 under LGPL, in accordance with a contract signer with iText Software.

The contract provides that the LGPL terms apply only for as long iText functionality is accessed only through Jaspersoft API calls and not directly.

So as long as you use iText through Jaspersoft functionality, meaning you are exporting reports to PDF, you are fine with the LGPL terms we are shipping iText 5.5 under.

I hope this helps.
Teodor

[Teodor Danciu]

Notice the header in the license file here:

http://sourceforge.net/p/jasperreports/code/ci/master/tree/jasperreports/lib/itextpdf-5.5.0-LICENSE.txt

 

Thanks,

Teodor

[thibault.kruse]

Thanks, that helps.

I still recommend putting that into the release notes.

[richard.schulte]

Where can I find the license containing the iText 5.5 LGPL exception?  The license in jasperreports-6.16.0-project.zip refers to iText 2.1.7

[Teodor Danciu]

The license for iText we shipped in JRL 6.0.0 was this one:
https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/jasperreports/blob/jr-6-0-0/jasperreports/lib/itextpdf-5.5.0-LICENSE.txt

But 6 months after that release, in JRL 6.0.4, we had to revert to using iText 2.1.7 as the agreement between Jaspersoft and iText was no longer applicable.

Since then, JRL is still using iText 2.1.7.