Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe
Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> wrote:
> Walter Landry writes:
>
> > Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> wrote:
> > > Walter Landry writes:
> > >
> > > > Not that special. His argument makes sense to me. If Kaffe is
> > > > required for Eclipse to run, then it looks like a whole work to me.
> > > > However, Kaffe is not the only JVM that can run Eclipse. But it is
> > > > the only one in main. That is why Eclipse needs to stay in contrib.
> > >
> > > Can you elaborate? Its dependencies seem to be satisfiable using
> > > main. Last time I read policy, that is sufficient to put it in main.
> >
> > As I understand it, Eclipse would require Kaffe to go into main. If
> > Kaffe is not suitable for Eclipse, then Eclipse would require a
> > non-free JVM to run. That puts Eclipse in contrib.
>
> Kaffe _is_ suitable for Eclipse.
That is what this whole discussion revolves around ...
> Eclipse is not a derivative work of Kaffe, though,
Correct
> and the Eclipse package is not a composite or collective work that
> contains Kaffe.
The package, by itself, is not. Just like I can make a package that
uses GNU readline that is not a composite or collective work. But
when I make copies of a work under the GPL, the GPL cares about the
company it keeps when the copies are distributed. If the GPL'd work
is part of a greater whole, then the whole thing has to be
distributable under the terms of GPL.
> That Kaffe is GPLed has no bearing on Eclipse.
>
> The argument to the contrary would mean almost all of main would have
> to be GPL-compatible. Even though Linux exempts programs that use
> system calls from the GPL, it does not exempt programs that use other
> Linux-specific interfaces, and almost all programs use such features
> (from /proc, of none others). Without auditing an application, we
> would have to presume the GPL applies to it.
The exemption actually says
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal
use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived
work".
It doesn't say anything about "Linux-specific interfaces". Using the
/proc system is quite normal.
> Debian kernel-image binaries also seem to omit the license disclaimer
> about system calls from /usr/share/doc/kernel-image-*/copyright. Does
> this mean Debian wishes the full GPL to apply to its distribution of
> the kernel?
If the copyright file for kernel-images is incorrect, please file a bug.
> > > How many GPL-incompatible packages exist that can only be compiled by
> > > gcc or compilers outside of main? Why should those not be moved into
> > > contrib because of that build dependency?
> >
> > gcc has a special clause in its license that exempts programs that
> > have been compiled by gcc from being subject to the GPL. It looks
> > like much, but not all, of Kaffe has a similar exemption. From the
> > Debian copyright file, valist.m4 and libraries/javalib/kjc.jar seem
> > like the problematic ones.
>
> Eclipse is in no way dependent on the m4 macros used to build Kaffe,
If it is not dependent, then why is it in the package?
> and clearly does not require the KJC support provided by kjc.jar.
Ok.
> Even if the "Kaffe GPL means you cannot run Eclipse on it" argument
> has any merit, I do not see how those could be a problem.
If there is no dependency on pure GPL code, then I don't think that
there is a problem. However, Grzegorz claims that there are still a
number of core classes that are pure GPL'd [1]. That would be a problem.
Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00601.html
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