BSD port

[Carla Schroer]

Dear Greg,

Once again I find myself apologizing for the delay in responding.  
With licensing issues, we have to get legal advice, and it can be 
difficult to get time with our attorneys because they have a lot on 
their plates.  I have a few more comments and questions below, and I 
appreciate you providing the information that you have here.
> 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.
>   

Thanks for the clarification about who did the work and under what 
licenses.  The JRL has different terms than SCSL.  We think the 
simplest solution for getting all the BSD port code back to us with 
the rights we need, would be for us to draft a document that could be 
signed by the folks who worked on this under the JRL, and also FreeBSD 
Foundation, if they also have rights in the code you wish to donate. 
>  
>> 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.
>   
>
I think we could do 6 or 7.  If you want a 6 port for BSD, then it 
seems like that's the way to go.  We see this process as a one time 
thing to get the code back into Sun and out again as part of OpenJDK 
under the GPL.  Then the group could work with the 6 open code and the 
7 code to get a BSD port for 7.  Then we wouldn't have to go through 
any of this again.  We are going to need to work out the best way to 
get your diffs that minimize our engineering effort to put the code 
back out.  I think Mark Reinhold will be driving that part of the  discussion, once we get past the license issues.
>  
>> 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.
>   
You are correct that SCSL isn't signed if you want the code for 
internal use or research use.  The SCSL is  signed if someone wants 
the "commercial attachment" to distribute products based on the code.  
FreeBSD did sign a SCSL commercial attachment as well as a TCK 
license.  So, we are going to need to get FreeBSD Foundation involved in giving the code back to us.

Carla