(jumping into the fray..) Stephen, I think most of us (or me, at least) do understand the reasons and motives behind the OMG's choice of license.
However, the fact remains that the license on their code is simply not acceptable for inclusion in any Free software project. Whether you or I or anybody thinks that position is overly idealistic is completely beside the point. Because, the point is this: CORBA can be implemented without using any OMG code, and only their written specifications. This does not violate any OMG copyright or our clean-room status, even if the OMG might like to think so. Copyright is simply NOT a good method to enforce a standard interface or API because you can't do it; Copyright does not cover the functional elements of code, which is exactly what an API or interface is. Unless we literally copy non-functional portions of their code, or literally copy non-functional parts of their specification text, they have no legal leg to stand on. And that is a good thing too. You wouldn't be able to have any kind of competition in computers if reproducing something necessary for interoperability was illegal. (Trade secret protection isn't an option either, since it's publicly documented. An intelligent choice would be to license the trademark 'CORBA' only to compliant implementations. But that's just my opinion) It can certainly be done. The OMG has no more legal standing against us than Sun does on the Java API, and that is pretty much what FSF-legal says too. Now, if the OMG made a written specification which isn't sufficient to produce compatible code, that will hardly be our fault. But I'm certain we will aim to be compatible. Anyway, I don't really think the OMG will change their scheme. But they should really have known better. But in my mind, it completely defeats the entire point of Classpath if it's not Free software. If someone wants to distribute a Classpath minus CORBA and a seperate OMG package to have guaranteed compatibility, we give them that right. But I can't see why there should be an exception for the OMG packages, when the main justification of Classpath is to have an implementation under a Free license. (I'm not entirely sympathetic to the OMG position either. I think it's overly paranoid. There are quite a number of standards out there which are NOT covered by such a license which still have not fragmented into dozens of incompatible versions.) /Sven _______________________________________________ Classpath mailing list Classpath@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/classpath
