Sun has an ombudsman
Hi,
I saw the swift reaction on bug #276302: [Sun License for JavaCC] which
has been an issue for years (upstream claims it is free software under a
modern bsd license, but some files had additional restriction). Getting
a real answer, an acknowledgment that this is a problem with regard to
the DFSG and a solution to the problem makes it now possible to package
this package for Debian main. So I send a "Thanks!" to some people at
Sun for their handling of this issue. They reminded me that Sun has an
"ombudsman" that is responsible for solving these kinds of issues the
free software community might have with software Sun distributes.
In the past a lot of people (me included) have been pretty skeptical
about Sun's motives and their effectiveness with regard to understanding
and handling community issues. But since their OpenJDK initiative, they
have been engaging and interacting with the existing libre java
communities (GNU Classpath, gcj, kaffe & friends), acknowledging that
cooperation is the way forward. They do seem genuine in their efforts
cleaning ship with respect to their GPL Java initiative and java
packages Sun creates on top of that.
Because I know Simon Phipps, who coordinated a lot between the
communities with respect to the launch of OpenJDK, is the person
currently monitoring and handling ombudsman@sun.com, I would like to
encourage people to email him whenever they spot things like the
"nuclear clause" in packages from Sun which prevent them going into
main. Even if those issues have been open for years without a clear path
to a solution. Especially with regard to their java-packages Sun really
is spring-cleaning now. So make the best of it! :)
Cheers,
Mark
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