thanks for the quick response.
Jeremias Maerki wrote:
The ASF does see a problem. Until the FSF has clarified the relationship between "linking" and Java's import concept the ASF's policy is not to allow usage of LGPL packages. There are certain exceptions. For example, if you have a JAI-compatible image codec under the LPGL you could use it because FOP would directly link only with the JAI API, not with the codec that's made available through JAI.
See also: http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?Licensing
Thanks a lot for the link! That was precisely the sort of information I was looking for.
A possible work-around is to establish a better plug-in concept for our image lib adapters in HEAD (not 0.20.5) so interested parties can create plug-ins outside of the ASF to use LGPL libraries.
I'm not very well aware of the differences between all the different image io APIs, so please excuse me if my next question is a typical newbie question. If, for example, we had javax.imageio support working for PNG images in GNU Classpath (and Kaffe), would/could FOP automatically use that, or would it still need to use JIMI?
The reasoning behind this being that PNG image support seems to be part of JDK 1.4 anyway, so it will be implemented in free runtimes eventually as well.
cheers, dalibor topic
