On Thursday 20 April 2006 11:34 am, Hannah Schroeter wrote: > On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 09:32:52AM -0400, Kurt Miller wrote: > >On Thursday 20 April 2006 8:12 am, Edd Barrett wrote: > >> One of my friends recently pointed out that FreeBSD are distributing > >> Java 5 binaries and actually are licensed to do so from Sun > >> Microsystems! I'm not sure how long thats been happening, but has > >> anyone made any effort to try to bag a similar agreement for OpenBSD? > >> If not I am willing to give it a try (with the consent of the OBSD > >> developers). I think have an email address of a Java Core developer I > >> met at JavaUK06. > > >There are two primary reasons why we will not be able > >to distribute java binaries: > > >1) Legal: The OpenBSD project is a collection of individuals. > >There is no legal entity associated with the project like a > >Foundation or non-profit org. That means there is no singal > >point of contact for Sun to contract with and shield the > >developers from liability. > > >2) Political: Even if #1 were solved, the binaries would > >come with a binary only license that is incompatible with > >the projects goals. > > IIRC the project goals mostly apply to base, while the "rules" for > licencing in ports/packages are less strict. E.g. no new GPL stuff in > base, but new GPL ports/packages are ok. Even more restrictive licences > are accepted, e.g. in textproc/glimpse, where OpenBSD mirrors distfiles > and distributes packages via ftp (but not on CDs because of the > licence conditions).
Sorry. I wasn't too clear about that. The binaries are only distributeable via a click through license that would need to be hosted somewhere. Hosting that click through license on the project web site is what I was referring to. The binary would not be able to be mirrored too. > >On the other hand, I have applied as an individual to Sun's > >scholarship program to get access to the test kit for 1.5 > >(JCK). I was approved by the scholarship committee and now > >waiting on Sun to get them. > > Do you know without having to check whether it'd be possible for an > individual to obtain such a licence from Sun and distribute inofficial > (wrt the OpenBSD project) Java packages then? Or would that bee too > risky from a legal POV? I wouldn't put my assets (house, retirement, etc) at risk to lawsuits from Sun or users of the binaries. I don't think anyone would really want to do that. -Kurt
