Dear all,
It is a great burden to us to provide the best out-of-the-box install
experience with NetBeans. That would mean, providing an installer with
JDK, nb-javac probably javafx.
See the threads:
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/a3e6051130e18aae3f7a81c562a63ac96d3a3a07d4bcbee074392d59@%3Clegal-discuss.apache.org%3E
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/489f17e30d9125ee48e2d78dc36572db6a3f5d6474f492458e0db151@%3Clegal-discuss.apache.org%3E
On 11/26/19 9:29 PM, Laszlo Kishalmi wrote:
Dear all,
I try to summary the lengthy threads about bundling OpenJDK GPL+CPE
with Apache NetBeans.
There are mainly two readings of GPL+CPE:
1. OpenJDK (GPL+CPE) + NetBeans (Apache) = Executable which can be
distributed under Apache license, due to CPE
2. CPE only allows other product built on Java to be distributed
under their own license.
As I'm not a lawyer, I cannot answer which interpretation is correct
(maybe none of them). ASF has every right to regard the second
interpretation, thus GPL+CPE ended up in the Category-X licenses.
The following viable possibilities were brought up:
1. We may apply for an exception to the board
2. Use some download logic in the installer.
3. Leave the binary packaging and distribution to third parties.
Regarding that there are interest from third parties to built on
Apache NetBeans, I'm going to recommend the PMC to select a few
distributor for creating installer packages and we limit/drop our
installer bundle creation in the future.
Thank you,
Laszlo Kishalmi
I do not think that after this discussion we would get the exception
from the board Geertjan might try to bring it up there as well.
As of me option 2 is questionable.
Option 3. is a bit hard to say, but if we can't produce proper
installation packages, it would probably better to not create those
packages at all, leave that for others.
How I imagine that:
1. From 11.3 we remove the convenience binaries and installers from
our download page
2. We would still create, sign and host our nbm-s.
3. On our download page we have the source package and a section for
third party distributors.
Well of course this thread is just to start a discussion about this
matter. I know it would hurt the brand, but probably it is better than
produce some sub-optimal installers while other parties can come with
all the bells and whistles.
Thank you,
Laszlo Kishalmi
