BSD port

[Greg Lewis]

G'day Carla,

On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:37:34AM -0800, Carla.Schroer at Sun.COM wrote:
> Bringing the BSD port into the OpenJDK Community under the GPL license is 
> something that Sun would very much like to see happen.

The BSD Java community would also very much like to see this happen, so
it seems like we're in complete agreement so far :).

> We believe that the work that's so far been done on the BSD port is based 
> on code obtained under the Sun Community Source License (SCSL).  We need to 
> understand if any of the work was done on code obtained under a different 
> license, such as the Java Research License (JRL). The SCSL license does 
> provide for code modifications to be given back to Sun with sufficient 
> rights and does not require a Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) in order to 
> do so.  So we do need to make sure that we are getting the code back under 
> SCSL.

Work on the part was done under the SCSL for the 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5
(initially) releases.  I mention the previous versions since many changes
would be forward ported from one version to the next.  Once the JRL update
releases commenced we started doing work based on them though, so those
changes would be under the JRL.

However, everyone who did work under the JRL has agreed to release there
changes under the GPL as well.  I need to check with the FreeBSD Foundation
though on work done for them under contract, but I believe they would be
happy for those changes to be released under the GPL too.

> In order to minimize the engineering effort for Sun, we need to work out a 
> way for you to provide diffs to us that correspond to the latest OpenJDK 
> code rather than the SCSL'd code with which you started, since the OpenJDK 
> code has already been cleared for distribution under the GPL.  We would 
> like to work with you on the best way to do this so that the code can be 
> published in an OpenJDK project as soon as possible.

We can do that.  I see OpenJDK 6 has been released very recently, so we
haven't ported to that yet.  For OpenJDK 7 we already have a port based
on an earlier build and that is being updated to the current build.

If OpenJDK 6 is part of this discussion (it might just be OpenJDK 7 you're
talking about :) then, assuming its source base is similar to the JRL
source base, we should be able to port to it quickly given that we have
a working port based on the JRL source.

> It would also help us if someone that worked on this port could provide the 
> name of the specific entity (or individuals) that signed the SCSL agreement 
> where this work took place, as well as any other licenses the work was done 
> under.

I can get together a list of names of the people who have contributed.
However, the SCSL was never "signed" as such.  One agreed to the license
by clicking on a button with something like "I Accept" on it when
downloading the SCSL based source releases.  So while I can provide a list
of names, I can't provide any paperwork.

> Thanks for your patience in waiting for this answer.  With various travels, 
> the holidays, and other items on our legal list, this took longer than we'd 
> all hoped.  We believe we now have a path to move forward and make this 
> happen.

No worries about the wait, just happy to have the ball rolling :).

-- 
Greg Lewis                          Email   : glewis at eyesbeyond.com
Eyes Beyond                         Web     : http://www.eyesbeyond.com
Information Technology              FreeBSD : glewis at FreeBSD.org