On 7/28/06, Shawn Pearce <spearce@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Shawn Pearce wrote: > > > [...] as the GPL is incompatible with the Sun JRE runtime lirbary. > > This is not true. You can legally write and run GPLed software on the JRE > runtime library. > > BTW I found an Eclipse plugin which is GPLed: > > http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/Web_Links-index-req-viewlink-cid-651.html Thanks. I did a little research on it myself after reading your email. I turned up the following two pages from the FSF: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InterpreterIncompat http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html Both suggest that I can license everything under the GPL but provide exclusions to allow users to run the code against its dependencies which aren't GPL'd: - the end-user may 'link' the code against any Java runtime library of their choice; - the end-user may 'link' the code against any Eclipse platform or derivative of their choice; So given that I'm seriously considering changing the license to GPLv2 for the next version.
Using the GPL plus your own exceptions creates another new license which is a pain for everyone involved. Why not just use the standard version with exceptions, the LGPL. The LGPL already allows the two exceptions listed. I don't believe there is any legal way to link GPL code into a Java app since there are no free Java runtimes. This includes both C libraries and Java code. GPL is great for a kernel, but it runs into difficulties in user space where there are hundreds of historical licenses that it can't mix with. The viral concept only works if the target app has the ability to relicense which is usually impossible for existing code. -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx - : send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html