Re: GPL Java

[hendrik@topoi.pooq.com]

On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 11:50:45AM -0800, Kelly Clowers wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Joshua J. Kugler <joshua@eeinternet.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday 14 November 2006 04:02, Gregory Seidman wrote:
> >> Okay, so Java's GPL'd now: http://www.sun.com/2006-1113/feature/index.jsp
> >> (Also http://java.net/ )
> >>
> >> How soon will we see packages in main at long last? Granted, a buildable
> >> JDK isn't expected until Spring of next year...
> >
> >I'm going to be a real stinker here and offer my guess: never.  My first
> >thought when I read the announcement was: "Great, it can now be included as
> >the default JVM in Linux, Debian included."  But then I quickly returned to
> >reality and remembered the whole trademark and DFSG thing.  While Sun
> >released the *code* as GPL, I'm sure to be called Java, it will have to
> >follow certain parameters.  If that simply means passing a test suite, then
> >including it in Debian might be possible, but if it means Sun approving all
> >the patches, approving binaries, etc, then we'll probably end up with
> >IcedLatte, or some such "almost Java" package.
> >
> >But...I could be wrong, and honestly do hope I am.
> >
> >j
> >
> 
> The equivilant of the Firefox problem would be if "Duke", the Java mascot
> was under a non-free licence and Sun said the you could not use the
> trademark "Java" without including Duke. But as far as I know, Sun has
> not said that, and anyway, Duke has been released under the BSD licence:
> https://duke.dev.java.net/

Last I heard, you could only use the mane "Java" if you followed Sun's 
spec.  That was the core of their lawsuit with Microsoft.  But they 
nevet, to my knowledge required anything but conformance to a spec, 
never line-by-line approval of code changes.  This if it no longer 
conforms to spec, you have to change the name.  Has that changed?  Is 
that acceptable under DFSG?

-- hendrik