On 0, Oki DZ <okidz@pindad.com> wrote: > On 28-06-2002 01:47 Kent West wrote: > >Thanks for everyone's input. I think I'll go the Sun route. Anyone > >have any idea why Sid's isn't up-to-date? Is it a "freedom" issue? If > >so, does Sun not realize they are hurting the spread of Java by not > >making it truly free? > > In what way? The SDK is freely downloadable. Are you expecting more...? > At least, AFAIK, the J2SE is basically free. Well, did I miss > something? (Usually, there's a delay about 5 seconds before I hit the > "Accept" button at the Sun's Java SDK download page.) It's been a *long* time since I read a Java license, but... IIRC Sun does not make source code freely available. This makes the software Free Beer software, not Free Speach software. The license probably says that you are not allowed to modify it in any way, or to pass on the JDK to others (I am pretty sure you are allowed to redistribute the JRE, so long as you include Sun's license conditions). You are not free to do what you will with it, so it is not free software. Generally speaking, a restriction on the modification of source kills something in Debian, since (I understand) the source has to be modified in some way before a .deb can be made. You are still free to use it; /usr/local/ is the place for non-.deb software. Tom -- Tom Cook Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide "A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five." - Groucho Marx Get my GPG public key: https://pinky.its.adelaide.edu.au/~tkcook/tom.cook-at-adelaide.edu.au
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