Re: [mark's edition] [RFC] Upcoming Apache Software Foundation License changes
Hi Dalibor,
(Feel free to forward my comments as is to others. I already included
debian-java since you had already CC-ed them)
On Sun, 2003-11-16 at 19:53, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> this mail would go out to kaffe, gcj, classpath, classpathx-discuss,
> classpathx-xml, gnu crypto, wonka, aegis, sablevm.
Don't know if they all allow crossposting. I can approve a crosspost to
the classpath mailinglist though. Thanks for raising awareness about
this issue.
> I could seed it a little further, but yeah, no time to search for links.
The current links and text is OK. Clear and to the point. People can
make up their own minds.
You might want to point out that the FSF (Eben Moglen) has already
commented on the main Apache 2.0 license proposal. And his comments were
largely positive [1]: "FSF notes that section 5 is the only element of
ASL 2.0 that is incompatible with version 2 of the GNU General Public
License. FSF continues to believe that the achievement of compatibility
between ASL and GPL would be of enormous benefit to the community of
free software developers, allowing merger of valuable code bases
currently separated by license incompatibilities. FSF is pleased to
note the convergence implied by the ASL 2.0 draft. FSF will make
efforts, in the development, discussion, and adoption of GPL 3 to
further the process of convergence, by carefully considering the Apache
Foundation's approach to the patent defense problem."
People following the GPL compatible/incompatible flamewars on the
debian-java and debian-legal mailing list will certainly agree with
those remarks. Compliments again to the Apaches for making everyones
desire to combing different free software works possible in the future.
So people should not focus to much on the main apache license 2.0
proposal. The RI and TCK are the ones that only got two small comments
this far and the comment of one of the Apache people was [2]: "One
comment is to the effect that the RI and TCK agreements are not free
because they restrict the manner in which a trademarked namespace can be
modified *and* redistributed. Such restrictions are well within the
constraints of DFSG.4 (*). Whether or not individuals dislike it is not
relevant -- it is a requirement passed down by the Java Community
Process. AFAIK, Debian does not redistribute Java software, so neither
the RI nor the TCK licenses apply to Debian."
(*) I don't think they are since they restrict the normal use of the
namespace which is a functional restriction on most normal programs
written in the java programming language. And such extra restrictions
would indeed make inclusion in Kaffe, GCJ or GNU Classpath impossible.
The comment is correct. We indeed don't produce Java(TM) software. But
we (and Debian in particular) does distribute (multiple!) free software
architectures intended to migrate people away from the proprietary Java
platform. And to enable that we need to be as compatible as possible
without falling into the non-free proprietary standards trap. The
Apaches should be praised for continuously trying to work together with
Sun to try to create a free software platform which isn't ultimately
controlled by a small group. And this will not have been easy for them.
But I am afraid that by playing by Sun/JSPA rules and disregarding the
larger free software world they are making a mistake. I would have hoped
that they would just have used an existing free software license
(hopefully GPL-compatible) for their JSPA submissions. If that is really
unacceptable then the JCP process might not be the best for creating new
java-like standards.
You and me know that we are currently enabling larger application
frameworks like Eclipse and JBoss to work completely on a free systems.
And that most Apache Jakarta libraries (and e.g. Tomcat, Ant, etc.) have
already been packaged for Red Hat (RPM) based systems through the RHUG
[3] and Naoko [4] projects for use with the native java compiler gcj.
But lots of people still believe that the current state of the free
java-like platforms is not yet capable enough. So creating awareness
about those two projects and for example the Done with GCJ list [5] and
the Kaffe Application Application page [6] is also very important. This
lets people know that we no longer need to depend on a proprietary Java
framework.
Cheers,
Mark
[1]
http://nagoya.apache.org/eyebrowse/ReadMsg?listName=license@apache.org&msgNo=69
[2]
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200311/msg00086.html
[3]
http://sources.redhat.com/rhug/
[4]
http://people.redhat.com/gbenson/naoko/
[5]
http://gcc.gnu.org/java/done.html
[6]
http://www.kaffe.org/compatibility_applications.shtml
Reply to: