BSD port

[Greg Lewis]

G'day Carla,

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 03:33:14PM -0700, Carla Schroer wrote:
> 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.

No worries, I'm aware of how long it can take to get answers from legal
departments :).

> > 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. 

That would work.  I already have email agreements that they are willing
to release changes under the GPL, so we should be able to obtain a signed
statement from everyone who has done work under the JRL (which is a much
smaller list than those that have done SCSL changes).

One problem might be people who have contributed very small fixes on a
one time basis.  Thankfully this is a small number for the JRL and we'll
deal with that when the time comes.

The FreeBSD Foundation do have a stake in this as they have rights to some
of the changes Kurt made under contract with them.  I've cc'ed Deb Goodkin
of the Foundation (I've already raised the matter with her previously and
I believe its under their consideration).

> >> 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.

We'll look at whether to target 6 or 7 once the license issues are
resolved.  But yes, we'd hope this would be a one time process that
would get the code back into OpenJDK and that the current porting
project would then shut up shop in favour of all future work being
based around OpenJDK.

We already produce diffs and have endeavoured to add BSD support without
affect Solaris/Windows/Linux in any way although its been a while since
I compiled our source base on any of these (I have compiled it under
Linux once or twice).

> >> 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.

Ok.  I'll wait to hear from the Foundation on this.

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