Yes, sublicensing. I believe the terms are not clear on how third parties can sublicense a composite of ASF-licensed works and GPL licensed works. IANAL and i don't understand it fully. But i was told that this is a problem and that problem is mitigated by the fact that Classpath is under GPL+Exception and a firewall can be set up by standard interfaces. That's why the VM Interface stuff is important.
But even then, there is no guarantee that people will want to do it because they can't make a closed fork if they want to for whatever reason. (Which ASL allows and if people wanted to do that, they would already be participating in one of the existing VM's in the classpath galaxy). Yes, i do want to enable people to download and use Harmony+Classpath together but in my mind that cannot be the only choice. thanks, dims On 12/4/05, Dalibor Topic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 02:13:30PM -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote: > > > > On Dec 4, 2005, at 12:38 PM, Anthony Green wrote: > > > > >On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 11:14 -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote: > > >>That said, I think that to be fair, we need to distinguish between > > >>"using" in the sense of what GCC is doing - a tool outside the scope > > >>of effort of the project enabling some behavior in a standard and > > >>non- > > >>intrusive way (just like we don't care about the license of the OS we > > >>run on), and "using" in the sense of developers of a project making a > > >>conscious decision to design and implement software with a > > >>dependency. > > > > > >This is wrong thinking. You aren't simply "using" the libgcc > > >routines, > > >as you would OS resources. You are linking your application to the > > >libgcc library and redistributing the resulting combined binary. > > >This > > >is precisely what the license talks about and enables. > > > > Ok - while it's not exactly the same, the fundamental point I was > > trying to make is sound, I think, in that in writing my program, I am > > not at all thinking "hey, I'll use stuff from libgcc". I'm just > > writing a C program. After that, compiling and creating the > > executable is a second independent step - the receiver of the > > software has no burden to switch compilers wrt libgcc. > > He is talking about the binary, you're talking about the source. Reread > what he said with that in mind, and it should become obvious that you > are both right, since you are talking past him ;) But with respect to > ASF's (legally fine, just aparently ruffling a few feathers among less > C-aware members) usage of GPL+linked exception licensed code from gcc, > Anthony is correct, there is no doubt about it. Check out the gcc > changelogs, and you will find that he knows very well what he's > talking about with respect to gcc. > > > > > The license needs to allow this, or using it would be a non-starter. > > > > > > > >Whether or not you make a distinction between this kind of GPL > > >+exception > > >usage and libstdc++ or GNU Classpath usage hardly matters, since the > > >licenses themselves don't make a distinction. > > > > That would only be true if there is a standard interface / component > > model for the classlibrary so that there can be competing > > implementations and users have the ability to switch from one > > implementation to another without significant burden in the event > > they wish to make changes, additions or enhancements, and have the > > freedom to choose what they do with their work. > > > > That's why I think that the our componentization efforts are so > > important. > > You seem to have narrowly missed what Anthony said, and went on > a defensive tangent instead ;) > > You don't have to defend the usage of GPL+linking > exception licensed code by the Apache Software Foundation, all of us > non-Luddites here agree that the GPL+linking exception works as it > should and the binaries shipped by the ASF are fine. > > This stuff is easy, and pretty obvious to anyone with a dissasembler, > and/or insight about C compilers, so let's have the same rules that > allow httpd to ship their binaries using/incorporating > GPL+linking exception licensed code, ASF's flagship product, after > all, be officially ratified, as they'd allow us to do the same. > > Is there something left that would speak against using GNU Classpath > in Harmony, after we have established as a fact that the ASF is indeed > happily distributing code using code under the same sort of licenses > and has been doing so for years? > > If not, then let's do it. > > cheers, > dalibor topic > > > > > geir > > > > -- > > Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > -- Davanum Srinivas : http://wso2.com/blogs/
