Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Timothy Selivanow]

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 20:16 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Francis Earl wrote:
> > It has everything to do with legalities, as the source code for the
> > encoders/decoders is available.
> 
> Not everything that fedora makes difficult is illegal.  Sun Java, for 
> one example, the drivers provided by the vendors of the hardware users 
> have chosen to purchase for another.

(doing my part to move the thread back to some-what on topic...)

It *used*to* be illegal to redistribute Java without Sun in the middle
(still subject to interpretation).  That is until Java6, when Sun made
the DLJ (https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/developer.html) and made it
retro-active for Java5.  That said, have you /read/ the DLJ?  It's not
exactly a fertile ground for Fedora mission objectives.


E.g. (http://download.java.net/dlj/jdk/LICENSE) (from the FAQ section):

"""
16. If some program in my OS specifies the option -Xbootclasspath to
    the java command, is that considered a breach of Section 2(c)?

    We realize there is some confusion about this because the    
    documentation for the java command at    
    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/solaris/java.html    
    makes specific mention of the Binary Code License (BCL). The intent
    of Section 2(c) is not to restrict what end user programs do with
    command line options but rather to ensure that the Sun Java
    platform is not used to create hybrid implementations with    
    alternate technologies, or mingle the JDK code with alternate    
    technologies so they run together.
"""

This along with FAQ section 14 make it sound like it excludes running
gcj and classpath.  Fedora also bytecode compiles to platform specific
binaries, using, gcj.

FAQ Section 17 says that you *still* have to provide a click-through
license before installation to end users, at least notifying them of
the licensing.

There was also wording that sounded like you may not be able to break it
into pieces (distribution is subject to the wording in the included
README, from the FAQ Section 9: """it allows us to adjust the technical
details of what constitutes the "Software" and what parts may be
redistributed separately or omitted from a distribution without revising
the license itself."""), even the way that JPackage does it.  JPackage
is not subject to the DLJ because they are not a distro. Furthermore
they provide nosrc RPMs which require users to still go through the Sun
click-through... which satisfies Sun.

Doesn't sound very libre to me...

Additionally, there are only *three* distros that have signed the DLJ:
Debian, Ubuntu (Mark helped Sun draft the DLJ, BTW), and Gentoo.  RH has
a separate agreement to "distribute" (essentially the drop-in RPMs that
Sun provides) it with EL that is not subject to the DLJ.


Disclaimers:
1.) IANAL.
2.) I like libre software...fanatically even; I have no stake in this
otherwise, professionally or not.
3.) Any non-quoted portions are of my opinion and not a position of any
other entity.
4.) Any quoted portions were not intentionally misquoted.
5.) Any misrepresentation is purely through my ignorance or
misunderstanding.


--Tim
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