Hi Peter,
I'm no lawyer either, but I need to ask--what does Sun's definition of
J2EE have to do with the GPL? Clearly, we are using the J2EE
APIs (current and proposed) as a platform, including EJB 1.1, EJB
2.0, JMX, etc. Why does it make a difference whether or not the
particular mix of J2EE APIs has been approved by Sun?
This is totally mixing apples with oranges. If the copyright owner of
the J2EE interface code wants to impose conditions on it--such as
'thou shalt not mix versions of J2EE in one platform'--obviously they
can. But that shouldn't affect whether those APIs are a platform
(with regard to GPL) in the slightest. Sun's name (or the JCP)
doesn't appear in the GPL.
-Dan
On 30 Oct 00, at 13:04, Peter Donald wrote:
> >On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, Peter Donald wrote:
> >> Other stuff (like jndi) is questionably GPLable. Because you target for a
> >> 1.2 VM (where JNDI is an extention) you can not GPL it in that case but in
> >> 1.3 where it is part of the runtime it is okay.
> >>
> >> Hell - I am not even sure that any class importing ejb package is GPLable.
> >
> >You seemed to be sure earlier that is ok to link against the
> >"platform" (J2EE-J2SE-J2ME) that is J2EE in this case.. this includes JTA,
> >JMS, EJB, JavaMail, JNDI etc.
>
> right but J2EE is a "special" case. You have to stay with the same versions
> of standard extentions which you do not. This issues is a big can of worms
> and I would suggest a lawyer goes through the sun licenses with you as I am
> in no way qualified to state the reasons why this not kosher. (I got a
> lawyer to try and explain it to me once but got lost after about 5 minutes ;])
>
> >JMX is not yet included though JSR77 seems to indicate its a candiate for
> >J2EE 1.4 spec.
>
> yep. But you are distributing now so it is relatively irrelevent what the
> future may or may not hold. Remeber that complying to J2EE also means not
> using standards such as EJB 2.0 and later versions of many of those other
> libraries which is extremely limiting. You also have to go through strict
> conformance testing etc and pay much $$ if you want to use J2EE as platform.
>
> Even if you stick to said platform you have to be able to prove that is
> intended platform and you have to immediately stop distribution when new
> version comes out and are not allowed to keep workin on old version or
> allowed to release anything until conform etc.
>
> Lots of hoops to jump through - especially for an OSS product and very
> expensive.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pete
>
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> | to test a man's character, give him power." |
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