This reply is written from a cursory scan of the ``Community Source
License'' for the JDK version 2. This reply certainly doesn't cover
all the reasons why the new JDK is not free software, such as
restrictions regarding naming of packages, but it does cover the
most prominent issue -- royalties.
Alex Nicolaou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> The first is that code in the JDK that you've modified must be
> returned to Sun for inclusion in the source code base of future
> releases.
[...]
> To my reading of it there's not much different here than how
> Classpath requires you to sign over your rights to mods to Classpath
> to make them free
You are under no obligation to assign copyright to the FSF for
modifications to Classpath. We only require assignments for code
which will be part of the distribution that the FSF releases. This is
for legal protection. All code which is assigned to the FSF and can
be considered a distinct work (that is, not a modification to existing
copylefted code) can be released under terms of the author's
choosing. The FSF will never distribute the author's code under
non-free terms, but the original author may do so.
> Overall, aside from actually making the source GPL, I can't see what
> more they could have done to make the license more friendly.
They could have released the JDK as free software. Sun requires
payment of royalties for certain types of distribution, and unlike
Jini, they require royalties for internal deployment of modified
copies of the JDK.
> And they really can't make it GPL now, after lots of companies have
> forked over lots of cash to get in on the Java thing.
Sun owns the copyright to the JDK. They can release it under any
terms that they so desire, including the GPL.
> In other words, as far as I can see, the community source license is
> every bit as good and free and altruistic as GPL.
This is certainly not the case. Royalties are against *everything*
that free software stands for. It's OK to charge a fee for free
software, because once you have the software, you always have the
freedom to copy and change the software; however, royalties restrict
your redistribution rights -- the software still has an owner.
