Distributing Java

[Stephan Hermann]

Hi,

Am Montag, den 17.10.2005, 17:16 -0400 schrieb John Dong:
> 
> 
> On 10/17/05, Stephan Hermann <sh at sourcecode.de> wrote:
>         Hi John,
>         
>         Am Montag, den 17.10.2005, 16:21 -0400 schrieb John Dong:
>         
>         >
>         >         The users needs to download the package themselves,
>         because
>         >         sun
>         >         insists that the users sees the licence agreement.
>         It is 
>         >         therefore
>         >         perhaps not legal to redistribute a direct download
>         link (I am
>         >         not a
>         >         lawyer, but better safe than sorry, imo)
>         >
>         > No, it's not, but it's legal to do it Gentoo's way, which is
>         to have 
>         > the user download the .bin from Sun, tell Portage where it's
>         located,
>         > and then Portage works much like java-package, showing the
>         license
>         > agreement before unpacking and installing into the system.
>         
>         Where did you see that Gentoo is downloading automatically the
>         java sdk?
> 
> I'm not saying it's automatically downloaded -- I said the user
> downloads the .bin for Portage. 

Sorry..I was reading it like "downloads automatically" ... forget what I
was saying.

> 
> 
>         
>         And where did you see suns java in OpenSuse?
> 
> http://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source-java/suse/i586/java-1_5_0-sun-1.5.0_03-2.i586.rpm

This is SuSE :) Not OpenSuSE...Novell has special deals with sun :(

On the novell website is written:

"The SUSE distributions all include one of the Sun Java Runtime
Environments (JRE) as part of a default installation, with SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server additionally installing the IBM Java SDK. As expected,
each distribution also complements these defaults with further
development kits and Java tools as part of the available software."


The package you pointed out is is the JRE, and the license is telling us
(inside the package):

"When you deploy an application written in the Java programming 
language, your software bundle will probably consist of the following 
parts: 

            Your own class, resource, and data files. 
            A runtime environment. 
            An installation procedure or program. 

You already have the first part, of course. The remainder of this
document covers the other two parts. See also the Notes for Developers 
page on the Java Software website:

     http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/runtime.html
"

The last URL tells us this:

"If you package the Java 2 Runtime Environment with your application
software, the license requires that you redistribute it in its entirety
except for some optional files which you may choose not to redistribute.
The files that are optional are listed in the README. They are for
functionality such as internationalization and localization which your
particular application may or may not need. If your software needs these
optional components, they are there for you to redistribute. If you
don't need them, there's no requirement for you to include them in your
redistribution of the Java 2 Runtime Environment."


So you're able to redistribute JRE without any permissions, but
regarding the License Policy of Debian and or Ubuntu, I don't think that
closed software is an option to redistribute.


> 
> and 1.4.x, too.  Those are full Java RPMS, different from Sun's
> official ones, and do NOT present the Sun license during installation
> (unless it's like buried 500 pages into the license agreement). 
> 
> 
>         I can it see only in rpm backports server like
>         packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/10.0/
>         
>         The buyable distro of Suse is different. SuSE Distribution is
>         not
>         entirely free to redistribute, which means, Sun JDK/JRE is not
>         allowed
>         to redistribute, which is why it is on a different CD.
> 
> But Novell offers the ENTIRE RETAIL ISO (binary identical to the
> retail box minus tech support and paper manuals) for download via
> torrents and all SuSE mirrors.

But they're not redistributing the JDK, only the JRE, and this because
they're not familiar with the debian/ubuntu policy of licenses.
And they're not thinking about what they're doing sometimes, think about
the long awaited opening of yast to the opensource.


> 
> 
>         
>         Better then including Sun Java is to ask Azureus to use
>         Blackdown.org's
>         java.
> True enough; I'll give up on Java packaging.
> 

Thinking of developing java application even with Ubuntu it should ship
with a better licensed version of a closed source language like
blackdown.org's java implementation then the sun java itself.

I don't like java, but I appreaciate Suns work in the OSS world, but
they should open javas source to the world, because it's a vital thing
for many people, who are not learning a real programing language
nowadays :(

\sh