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Now that iText has gone AGPL, I'm assuming someone is going to take the old (2.1.7 or 4.2.0) code and fork it to keep an LGPL version going. Does anyone know of such a fork already started?
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One major difference is that PDFBox always processes text glyph by glyph while iText normally processes it chunk (i.e. single string parameter of text drawing operation) by chunk; that reduces the required resources in iText quite a lot.
To answer your question: iText can be used for free in situations where you also distribute your software for free. As soon as you want to use iText in a closed source, proprietary environment, you have to pay for your use of iText.
The short answer is, yes, iText is open source.
iText is a Java library originally created by Bruno Lowagie which allows to create PDF, read PDF and manipulate them.
There seems to be some sense that wanting to use or continue with the LGPL version is a personal affront to Bruno.
How about the fact that folks adopted the library because it was LGPL in the first place? Now a change in the package names and licenses is supposed to be ok and we should just shut up and live with it. That's called bait and switch.
Bruno can do what he wishes and it's understandable that the man wants some money for his efforts. If that's the best way to monetize his work then he should do so. However, that doesn't make those who want to use the original LGPL version pariah and wanting to move forward with a fork of that licensed codebase isn't being nasty.
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