On the role of the SCA

[Andrew Haley]

On 09/05/11 17:36, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
> 2011/5/9 5:21 -0700, gnu_andrew at member.fsf.org:
>> ...
>>
>> As I mentioned in the previous thread, much of this could be sorted
>> out if Oracle simply cleaned up their binaries so that there was a
>> clear GPL component with proprietary blobs to plug in.  That's both
>> technically and legally possible AFAICS, ...
> 
> No, it is not.
> 
> Oracle has long-term contractual commitments to deliver JDK source code
> under a proprietary commercial license to various partner companies who
> would not, under any circumstances, accept GPL-licensed code.
> 
> These partners are vital members of the overall Java ecosystem: They do
> the heavy lifting of porting the JDK to a wide variety of architectures
> and operating systems.  This work is of value to themselves and their
> customers, obviously, but it indirectly benefits everyone by ensuring
> the ubiquity of the Java platform.

That's a good point I hadn't considered.  It's really easy for those
of us who work only on free software to forget that the Java community
extends far beyond just free Java.

Andrew.