Anthony Green wrote:
>
> It is similar to libgcc license, which is GPL'd with this exception:
>
> /* As a special exception, if you link this library with other files,
> some of which are compiled with GCC, to produce an executable,
> this library does not by itself cause the resulting executable
> to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
> This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
> the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */
>
> If we could all agree to switch to this license, then we'd have a much
> easier time working together. It prevents people from making non-Free
> changes to the library, but gives them more flexibility to build
> non-Free applications - just like libgcc and libstdc++ do. If we
> could all agree to switch to this license, then we could start working
> on a plan to merge the two projects. There would be some technical
> challenges - but I think they are manageable.
[This is really in reply to Paul's "please weigh in now", but I wanted
to quote this license stuff to refer to]
I have no objections to this, but a couple of questions about the
details. Sorry in advance if any of these sound like objections - they
are naturally tainted by my current understanding of the issues, which
isn't complete enough to know whether they are problems or not.
Firstly, isn't the objective of this license very similar to the
objective of the LGPL? When Japhar (which classpath was originally part
of) originally switched from GPL to LGPL, that was more or less the
rationale - they/we (I hesitate to include myself, because my
contribution has been fairly small) didn't want people making non-free
versions of Classpath, but we didn't want to stop people from compiling
or running non-free programs against it. Obviously, there are major
differences in the "implementation" of this and the LGPL, but what are
the differences in the "objective" that merit the change?
Secondly, how would this license affect embedding of classpath in eg
Mozilla, which is Free but not GPL-compatible? For me, it would be a
crime for (one of) the premier Free web browsers to be unable to use the
premier Free Java libraries. Although I don't know the legal details, I
believe that the LGPL "plays nice" with Mozilla's license, but the GPL
doesn't (or, if you prefer, Mozilla's license plays nice with the LGPL
but not the GPL).
Thirdly, would this have any impact on Japhar, and if so, how do the
Japhar authors feel about this? (Same question for all other free but
not-GPL VMs... I'd rather, if possible, avoid forcing their hands
license-wise)
Fourth (a niggle) Would the wording be changed from "compiled with gcc"
to "compiled against the classpath libraries" (or whatever the combined
project ended up being called) - so that it was compiler independent?
Fifth... what would be the approach to the JNI vs CNI issue? It doesn't
sound too productive to implement all the native pieces twice... maybe
we could come up with some abstraction layer to allow either approach to
be used? (I doubt the classpath people would want to abandon JNI, but I
don't want to suggest imposing that view on the gcj people either)
Just my 0.4 nickels...
Stuart.
