Sorry if this went off the rails a bit... I really was just teasing.
But on a serious note, would it be possible for someone to give a
good technical description of the GNU Classpath VM interface so that
people who aren't aware and for whatever reason can't read it on the
classpath site due to legal reasons can be brought up to speed?
I know the legal stuff gets tiring.... but it would be good for the
discussion that's been started.
geir
On Jul 24, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Sven de Marothy wrote:
On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 04:19 +0200, Robert Schuster wrote:
Does 'them' mean the VM interface? If yes, then I do not see a
problem.
IMHO we (=Classpath) should release the interface as MIT/X11
license or
even place it in the public domain.
Would that be a feasible option?
IANAL. But as far as I'm concerned, an API is not copyrightable* in
itself, so it's in the public domain to begin with.
I'd personally prefer not to put a license on this, not only because
it's redundant, but because Sun has expressed the legal fantasy
that an
API is copyrightable. And I wouldn't want GNU Classpath to take an
action supporting that view, because in the same view Classpath is
infringing Sun's copyrights.
A better solution would perhaps to simply make a statement or
affidavit
on the status of the API saying: "We do not believe this is
copyrighted." But let's leave that to FSF-legal.
Kaffe is under the GPL and implements a lot of the Java class library
APIs. Does that mean Sun's implementation infringes on the GPL? Or
is it
Kaffe which is infringing? And Linux is infringing on The Open Group's
POSIX license. And so on and so forth.
*Computer Associates International, Inc. versus Altai, Inc., (US 2nd
Circuit 1992) frames the issue squarely.
/Sven
--
Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
