On Wed, 17 Feb 1999, D'Arcy Smith wrote:
> > > 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.
If the cost was one cent it would still be too high. Free software is
about freedom from just this sort of control. There is no "cost" to
maintain a copyright. You might be able to claim that it costs money
to enforce a copyright but that is another matter.
> In the case of Jini at least (I don't know the specifics of the
> JDK) the royalty is something like $0.10. So if you sell
> 100 copies of your software Sun makes $1. The cost is to cover
> their maintaining of the copyright (goes to the lawyers :-)...
> I don't know what happens to the surplus (if there ever is any).
> Not free software - but not gouging either.
>
> Side question:
The fact that you have seen the Sun code is what keeps you from
helping out. Sun has nothing to do with this. It is the Classpath
folks that decided they wanted a "clean room" implementation.
> what in the _old_ Sun license agreement keeps people who
> signed it from helping out with CLASSPATH? My license
> with Sun has expired finally :-) (obviously I won't be
> helping out any time soon anyway since there is probably
> some conflict with my employer :-)
>
> Thx,
>
> ..darcy
>
> --
> D'Arcy Smith
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Symantec Corp., Internet Tools Division
later
mo dejong
dejong at cs.umn.edu
