Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Kalle Kivimaa <killer@debian.org> wrote:
> Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> writes:
> > The kernel has an exemption.  This has been pointed out more than
> > once.
> 
> OK, apache2 depends on Bash to function (/etc/init.d/apache2).

Bash is copyrighted by the FSF, who has already given permission to do
this sort of thing.

> This must mean that Debian cannot distribute Apache 2 and Bash
> together (at least we would have to remove Bash from Essential).
> In addition, apache2 explictly depends on Lynx, which is GPL'd,

On my system, it looks like a Suggests.

> as is net-tools, which also is a dependency to apache2.

There is ongoing discussion over whether the Apache 2 license is GPL
compatible.  As I understand it, the ASF wants the Apache 2 license to
be GPL-compatible, so I am confident this can be worked out.  Pick a
different example.

> > Because there are non-GPL equivalents for Bash and Less (and I don't
> > think there are many programs that Depend: on Less).  There may be
> > GPL-incompatible programs that depend on Bash specific features, in
> > which case bugs should be filed.  I can't imagine there are that many.
> 
> And Java programs run on various non-GPL Java runtimes in addition to
> Kaffe.

But none in Debian main.  People seem to be missing the point, so I
will repeat: I am not saying that Eclipse is not distributable, just
that it can't go into main.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu