[Fwd: DLJ 6u10 bundles have been posted on jdk-distros.dev.java.net]

[David Herron]

Mark Wielaard wrote:
> Hi Dalibor,
>
> On Fri, 2008-10-17 at 00:15 +0200, Dalibor Topic wrote:
>   
>> Andrew John Hughes wrote:
>>     
>>> Only if you want to regress to a non-Free build, as I presume this is
>>> the proprietary JDK i.e.
>>> the exact opposite of OpenJDK.
>>>   
>>>       
>> I'm not aware of a way to build OpenJDK on sparc using non-free tools
>> somewhere in the build process.
>> Yet. ;)
>>     
>
> It is coming along nicely:
> http://weblogs.java.net/blog/editors/archives/2008/10/one_on_one.html
> http://www.advogato.org/person/twisti/diary.html?start=19
>
> I agree with Andrew. These DLJ bundles seem inappropriate for this list.
> Not only is it a proprietary fork of what we are all working so hard on
> to fully liberate. It is distributed under a very controversial license
> that was explicitly written to divide the community that wants to work
> collaboratively on free alternatives like GNU Classpath, gcj, cacao,
> jamvm, kaffe and now icedtea/openjdk.
>
> DLJ 2.c says: "you do not combine, configure or distribute the Software
> to run in conjunction with any additional software that implements the
> same or similar functionality or APIs as the Software"
>
> The DLJ FAQ explains: "you can't use pieces of the JDK configured in
> conjunction with any alternative technologies to create hybrid
> implementations, or mingle the code from the JDK with non-JDK components
> of any kind so that they run together."
>
> Which is precisely the core value of IcedTea and friends...
>
> So, lets see if we can somehow get the DLJ license fixed and make it
> possible to intermingle the code of these projects. Then I think it
> would be much more appropriate for all. Currently however it is of
> little use to anybody on this list since even configuring or running it
> together with our projects is disallowed.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark
>   

I suppose you're requesting that I stop sending the DLJ announcements to 
this list?

As I said yesterday, I've been forwarding DLJ announcements to this list 
because some of the people here are also packaging DLJ bundles for Linux 
distros in addition to the OpenJDK derived bundles.  If I recall 
correctly the origination of this list it was in part to discuss 
packaging of DLJ bundles, not just OpenJDK bundles.  But even if I'm 
remembering the origin correctly, clearly the vast majority of the 
conversation on this list is focused on the IcedTea team efforts for 
building OpenJDK.

As for fixing the DLJ license it's more likely that we'll simply drop 
the DLJ project altogether.  As the OpenJDK/IcedTea is improving all the 
time the DLJ has less reason to exist.  I think we would all agree that 
long term the goal is to end the reason for the existence of the DLJ 
project.  Since we mean to end the DLJ project there's little cause to 
spend the legal effort to rewrite the DLJ license.

My reason to work on the DLJ project (since its beginning) was to 
support broadening the availability of 'Java' on more operating systems, 
especially on Linux.  Clearly the success of the OpenJDK has outstripped 
the distribution of the DLJ bundles and the OpenJDK is a much better 
vehicle to achieve the end of broader availability of 'Java'. 

- David Herron,
DLJ Project tech lead (among several other hats)