Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe
Joel Aelwyn <fenton@debian.org> writes:
> On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 03:15:23AM -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>>
>> I think most of those are just aggregation on a medium of
>> distribution. Only the tree of dependencies has to be checked.
>
> So what you're saying is that "Depends: java2-runtime" is fine, but
> "Depends: kaffe | java2-runtime" is not?
>
> Arguing that it triggers and then violates the GPL because of a minor
> limitation in one of our package retrieval tools, such that it requires
> hinting to resolve otherwise random situations, seems like something of a
> stretch to me.
This isn't random. This will be the only java2-runtime in main. I
don't think non-GPL-compatible stuff can be put in main like this,
just like with only one OpenSSL library, only SSL-license compatible
software using that API can be put into main.
> Again: Eclipse will install and run just fine with no traces of Kaffe
> anywhere on the system, using "apt-get install eclipse", at least on my
> system. All it requires is that there be some other JVM present to run
> it. Proof by demonstration that neither Eclipse, the Eclipse package, nor
> Debian as a whole are derivative works of Kaffe... they keep working even
> if it doesn't appear, anywhere.
Not a derivative work: a copy. Debian distributes copies of Kaffe,
and is considering distributing them with copies of Eclipse. That's
only OK if it's not "mere aggregation". When Kaffe is the only reason
Eclipse can go in main, I don't think we're talking about mere
aggregation again.
> If it would make you happy, you may feel free to install the following
> software on your system so that there is an alternative JVM, and Kaffe
> won't be the only one.
>
> #! /bin/sh
> exit 0
Would that, packaged, be enough to put Eclipse into main? That is, if
Kaffe weren't there? Would you be comfortable distributing Eclipse
with a line Depends: null-jvm | java2-runtime?
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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