On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 06:20:18PM -0500, Fred Fox wrote: > > I don't > > care how 'free java' is licensed, as long as I can link proprietary code > > to it if needs be, and it frees me from using Sun's java, and all the > > restrictions that that entails. > > The day you don't just want to link proprietary code, but want to make a > proprietary modification to GregorianCalendar, you'll appreciate the freedom > of the ASL compared to GPL +/- exceptions. > > /FF
Fred Fox wrote: >>I don't >>care how 'free java' is licensed, as long as I can link proprietary >>code >>to it if needs be, and it frees me from using Sun's java, and all the >>restrictions that that entails. > > > The day you don't just want to link proprietary code, but want to make > a proprietary modification to GregorianCalendar, you'll appreciate the > freedom of the ASL compared to GPL +/- exceptions. > Hmm, google knows no Fred Fox that deals with Apache or Java, interesting. Welcome to the internet, anonymous friend ;) That's an interesting way to see it, but bright people seem to have found ways of doing all sorts of things within the very liberal licensing framework created by the FSF using the GPL+linking exception in the past 10+ years, including Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, ... and trust me, they don't only make open source software. I am sure if you ponder on it long enough, the words "linking exception" will show you a way how to have your proprietary GregorianCalendar code linked with the rest of the GPL+linking exception licensed class libraries. If on the other hand, your beef is with using code licensed under terms making proprietary modifications hard, then may I introduce you the the wonderful world of the BCL [1], under which many reference implementations of standards in the Java technology space are licensed, ocassionally without an open source alternative, including J2SE? As one of its core features, the BCL does not allow proprietary modifications, or in fact, *any* modifications *at all* of the shipped reference implementations in order to preserve standards compliance, afaik. And guess what? Many Apache projects have *hard* BCL licensed library dependencies (JMI, etc.), and many of them still require a BCL licensed J2SE implementation to run. They won't build or run without those BCL licensed dependencies. At all. As long as Apache projects can and do happily use code that makes any modification impossible (and that's fine for me, we'll just have to reimplement that as free software eventually, or to find better ways to do the tasks), I don't see how we can even have a discussion about Apache projects being worse off using code that explicitely makes modifications possible. Please, do come back once you've made all apache.org java software build and run with IKVM and ecj, I'll be here. Once you've fixed all the instances of ASF's software depending on BCLd code that prohibts any modification at all, then we can definitely talk about use of code under licenses presumably limiting proprietary modifications in Apache projects. I am looking forward to seeing your contributions in form of patches to various Apache.org projects. Talk is cheap, right? So do show us the code, please. cheers, dalibor topic [1] from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/jdk-1_5_0-license.txt 3. RESTRICTIONS. Software is confidential and copyrighted. Title to Software and all associated intellectual property rights is retained by Sun and/or its licensors. Unless enforcement is prohibited by applicable law, *you may not modify*, decompile, or reverse engineer *Software*." > > -- > ___________________________________________________ > Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/ >
