OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 20011/4/21

[Andrew Haley]

On 09/05/11 08:32, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 7:05 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes
> <gnu_andrew at member.fsf.org> wrote:
>> I also personally wouldn't contribute to non-copyleft projects either,
>> something I already
>> made clear years ago when Apache Harmony started, so whatever you are trying to
>> imply with this comparison is flawed.
> 
> I don´t think my comparison is flawed.
> 
> Mozilla (the Mozilla Suite) was originally -and for a number of years-
> released under a triple license: MPL/GPL/LGPL. This allowed Netscape
> Corp to build a commercial browser (Netscape 6.0 to 7.2) on top of the
> open source code, and package it with propietary code if they so
> wanted (commercial spellchecker, or the AIM sidebar tab written in
> XUL, etc).
> 
> So if you contributed to Mozilla.org, your code would not only end up
> in the Mozilla 1.x browser suite, but also on Netscape 6.x - 7.x
> 
> Now, for some reason you say this approach irks you, and that you want
> no piece of your contributions ending up in a commercial product with
> a different license.
> 
> This is what I don´t understand. I never saw any Mozilla.org developer
> complaining that their work would end up being part of the Netscape
> 6.x / 7.x browser. And that was my comparison.

Well no, you wouldn't see any Mozilla.org developer complaining about
that, because they are a self-selected bunch who don't mind their
contributions being released under a proprietary licence.  People
who want all their code to be free work on other projects.

> you said "Making it part of OpenJDK under the OCA also means
> contributing to Oracle's proprietary products and this is why I
> personally would not make any
> significant contribution of work (as in complete new features like
> Mario mentions, rather than fixes) to OpenJDK."
> 
> Oracle is doing the same Mozilla did for years. Trying to build a
> commercial product AND an open source project, both at the same time.
> Why can´t they?

They can, of course, but to describe someone as "silly" for not wanting
their own contributions to be part of proprietary software is, well,
silly.

But please: let's not have a vast rambling thread about every possible
OpenJDK issue piggybacked onto the issue of the GB.

Andrew.