P. Siegmann wrote:
> Legally speaking: I've developed them using the servlet documentation only. I
> have suns servlet development kit here but I've been very carefull not to look
> at the source code and have only used it to make sure they behave the same.
> It has always been my intention to release the classes under the Library Gnu
> public license.
This sounds good. Mark, are you willing to adopt this code and get it fully
tested and running? So long as it basically works and has been reasonable
tested, it is probably good enough for us now. None of our code is
production grade yet.
Both of you (Paul and Mark) should mail Paul Fisher ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) to ensure
that all the legal niceties are taken care of. Assuming everything is ok,
we can go ahead and put the code into CVS.
I briefly glanced at the code. It looked fine after a 60 second scan. I
did notice that you imported classes from the current package, which isn't
technically necessary, but that was the only real problem. It includes docs
too, very nice.
> > Would implementing the specification be productive or commercial use?
>
> I have no idea whatsoever.
> I've always thought that if somebody publishes apidocs then it's legal to make
> your own implementation. But as I'm not a legel expert I'd advise you not to
> depend on my advise.
> I'll send you the check for this advice ;-)
Just using the spec is legal. Looking at source is a no-no though.
(Technically even looking at the source doesn't mean you can't write a
cleanroom implementation, but if you do and it comes out that you saw the
source, and you use a similar implementation, then things could go bad for
you. The best policy is never to look at proprietary sources).
--
Aaron M. Renn ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/
