JDK7 with lambda's downloadable

[Dr Andrew John Hughes]

On 14 September 2010 01:53, Neal Gafter <neal at gafter.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes
> <ahughes at redhat.com>wrote:
>
>> On 10 September 2010 06:39, Neal Gafter <neal at gafter.com> wrote:
>> > Does Oracle offer a patent grant so that we can *use* the lambda
>> prototype,
>> > whether from our own builds or prebuilt by Oracle?  The GPLv2 license
>> > doesn't include such a patent grant, and the Java patent promise doesn't
>> > apply because the lambda prototype isn't an implementation of any Java
>> > platform specification.  Without such a patent grant we would be
>> violating
>> > Oracle's patent rights by running the prototype.
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html (7 & 8)
>> http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents
>>
>
> I'm afraid sections 7 and 8 are not the least bit helpful.  An allegation of
> patent infringement for using GPL2'ed code does not contradict any of the
> conditions of the GPLv2 license.  From your latter reference:
>
> Two parts of GPLv2 imply that the distributor gives the downstream
> recipients a patent licence. In section 6, GPLv2 says that the distributor
> grants a licence to carry out the four freedoms. In section 7, it says that
> distribution is banned if the distributor has patent obligations preventing
> the recipient from having the four freedoms. So, if the distributor does
> distribute, then there is an acknowledgement that the recipient is free to
> do everything described in the licence.
> The GPLv2 license grants freedoms to copy, distribute, and modify the
> sources.  But GPLv2 doesn't grant the recipient the right to use (execute)
> the code.  To use the code, you'd need the right to every patent that may be
> infringed by executing the code.  That would have to be either an explicit
> grant from Oracle, or under some separate license (such as GPLv3).  Oracle
> has not granted me, or other non-Oracle openjdk contributors, the patent
> rights that we need to use the code.  However, the openjdk contributor
> agreement requires that we grant Oracle our patent rights!
>
> It would be a simple matter for Oracle to give us the rights we need to use
> the openjdk prototypes, but they have not yet done so.
>
>

If true, it doesn't protect the four freedoms in this case as freedom
0 is 'the freedom to run the program for any purpose'
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)
-- 
Andrew :-)

Free Java Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)

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