Anthony Green wrote:
But what would be the point of a relicensing effort like this? AFAICT, many people here show no interest in collaborating on a single free class library project.
uh? nobody ever mentioned that harmony was about "a single free class library project".
I, personally, don't give a damn about that: the ASF will not dual license its code under a *GPL license (also because it can't! not being the copyright holder!) and the FSF will not dual license its code under an apache license. Period. So, as much as I don't insult the GNU Classpath project by asking them to dual-license under terms that go against their nature, don't be surprised if people react defensively when you ask such a thing here.
Apache Harmony is a project that aims about certifying a J2SE implementation that is licensed (as a whole) under terms that are considered acceptable by its community.
As I mentioned, LGPL licensing terms have never be considered "acceptable", but this is scheduled to change in the near future.
Once this is changed, the GPL + Classpath exception will be next to be considered.
Personally, I'm not advocating for Classpath to change their license: I've stopped caring about those things. As I said, at times it's easier to rewrite the code or to shop around for interested commercial entities for donations.
As the guy who started the Gump runs against Kaffe, I am interested in helping out all the efforts that gravitate around a free/open java implementation.... but I have to do it in Apache (or we won't have access to the TCK!) and therefore I have to play by the social rules that exist here.
In such an ecosystem, having Classpath licensed under LGPL would make it much easier for Harmony to start merging pieces.
If not, we'll have to create yet another licensing bridge and it will take some more time, that's all.
-- Stefano.
