On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 21:58:16 +0100 Simon Josefsson <si...@josefsson.org> wrote:
> > Last question: What if some these jars were built using a non-free > > java version? > > I believe it is possible to have free software that is built with a > non-free compiler. The license for the software itself, and that of > the compiler, has to permit redistribution though. As far as I know, source code compilation doesn't affect the copyright of a work, however some compilers also include some other code inside the generated binary. This is very common in C, see crt0[1] for more details. Non-free compilers also creates other issues such as the "trusting trust"[2] problem. You cannot know if the binary really corresponds to the source code since you don't have the compiler source code. So, because of that, it's a really really good idea to build the toolchain or have it built by a distribution, especially if building it is not trivial. I'm not a java compiler specialist, all I know is from openJDK/icedtea, and gcj. So it may not even apply to Android's dalvik. On openJDK/icedtea javac is the java compiler, it compiles .java source code in .class java bytecode. Then the jvm can run the bytecode, which is lower level. References: ----------- [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0, with GCC it's under GPLv3 with some additional permissions, see: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_Trusting_Trust#Compiler_backdoors Denis.
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