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distributing precompiled binaries



Hi all,

I've recently encountered an issue while packaging remuco (Bug #416379).
Remuco is a duplex remote control application (mobile phones <=> media
players). The mobile phone portion is written in Java, whereas the
portion that runs on the media player computer is written in Python.

For the Python part, the sources are completely distributed, and no
binaries are in the tarball. However, for the Java part, only the .jar
is distributed in the tarball. I have contacted the upstream developer
about this issue, and he will be releasing another tarball with the
sources for the Java portion.

The problem begins here: The Java portion has a build-dependency on Sun
Microsystem's WTK[1], and it is not free[2]. However, this is just a
build dependency, and not a runtime dependency. In fact, the .jar isn't
even supposed to run on the target machine, it's supposed to be uploaded
to the mobile device.

Hence, my question: Is it okay (within DFSG) for upstream to distribute
the said .jar file, together with the sources for this .jar file, and
for this said .jar file to be copied straight into a .deb and
distributed as-is?

Thanks in advance.

[1] http://java.sun.com/products/sjwtoolkit/
[2] https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_Developer-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewLicense-Start

P.S. I sent this on debian-mentors already, then was told by bremner
that I should send this here, so I'm sorry if you have received this
twice.
-- 
Chow Loong Jin

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