Freeness of Java: decision needs to be taken
[Cross-posted to debian-java and debian-legal because it is both a
Java-specific problem and a legal/political one.]
I maintain several Java packages whose licence make them eligible for 'main'.
But I assume (the Policy seems silent on this point, but my assumption seems
reasonable) that, to be really free, a package has to:
- be compiled with free tools,
- be able to run only with free tools.
As you know, this is not easy to get with Java.
The two compilers we have, JDK and Jikes, are non-free (I exclude guavac,
which is orphaned, both upstream and in Debian). Jikes belongs to IBM, so
they'll may be change their licence, like they did with Postix, but Jikes
depends on the JDK, anyway. In the mean time, we have no Java free compilers.
A Java compiler produces bytecode (some compilers produce native codes, but I
don't think any of them is distributable, even in non-free). To actualy run
this bytecode, you need a Java virtual machine. We have two of them, JDK
(non-free) and kaffe, which is free, but whose list of bugs
<http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/pa/lkaffe.html> is quite desperating.
Worse, despite the hype on Java portability, it is quite common that programs
compile only with a specific compiler, or runs only with a specific virtual
machine.
So, should we move *every* Java package to 'contrib'?
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