Eclipse Kanto Restructuring review

PMI link: Eclipse Kanto

The project has requested to change the license to dual licensing: EPL v2 and Apache 2.0. We'll use this issue to keep track of the restructuring review that will cover this aspect.

Background

The reasoning behind this request is mainly based on Kanto's potential adoption implications in the automotive domain being EPL v2 only which have been raised by the SDV working group where Kanto plays an essential role in the in-vehicle stack.

Based on the latest information on the topic the project has shared the following findings:

• Eclipse Kuksa is undergoing a license change (adding Apache 2.0 to the current EPL v2) for certain components relevant to SDV. The reason behind is SDV's preference and decision for choosing Apache 2.0 for the in-vehicle components of SDV's edge stack
• Eclipse Leda (aiming to provide an "SDV distribution") is also under Apache 2.0 (only) based on the same reasoning.

When looking into Eclipse Kanto, the general approach has always been to provide flexibility via an architecture that allows custom extensions to be easily plugged using a public Kanto API for a specific need on top of the existing core functionality provided by the project as-is. The way we expect to evolve the project is exactly based on analyzing and enabling use cases from which such pluggability mechanisms to be derived and introduced in the project to ensure Kanto is a flexible enough, thus, well-fitting building block in any edge solution. This approach is license-regardless.

Based on that, we would like to go for the following:

Dual licensing for the whole Eclipse Kanto project - EPL v2 and Apache 2.0.

The goal is to combine both OSS evolution paths: encourage contributions and the community via EPL v2 for organizations and interested parties considering the EPL v2 OSS values imposed in it AND ease the adoption via enabling a permissive Apache 2.0 usage for more conservative use cases and domains

License change

In order to implement the required license change, we need to complete the following:

• EMO (ED) approval
• IP rights transfer agreement from past contributors (they could state the agree with the license change in the comments below or a you could do this through a public mailing list)
• PMC notified
• Inform the Kanto community using the project communication channels
• EF database license update
• PMI license update
• Copyright headers updated (waiting for project notification)
• License files updated (waiting for project notification)