Donating code to Kaffe

[Brian Jones]

Tim Wilkinson <tim at transvirtual.com> writes:

> I missed a couple of points:
> 
> 1. We ask donors of significant code to sign a statement which essentially
> says they not encorporating anyone elses technology (specifically Sun's)
> into Kaffe.
> 
> 2. We do *NOT* require copyright to be assigned to us - though obviously we
> need the source be made available under an Open Source license.

Sorry Tim, I assumed that code in the GPL'd class libs migrated into
the custom version which you sold and therefore you'd have to require
it.  Thanks for the clarification.  I should have researched this more.

> > Second, we distribute Kaffe under the GPL...
> > This does not prevent you from using Kaffe to run proprietary
> > software - we'd like you to make your software open source too but
> > that's up to you.

Going back to the beginning of Classpath when we discussed licensing,
the problem with releasing the class libraries as GPL is the GPL
doesn't allow one to 'link' proprietary code to those libraries either
at compile time or runtime.  According to what I've heard in the past,
I believe even from RMS himself, the VM in essence performs this
'link' because without those GPL'd libraries the program could not
function.  Because the VM itself is self-contained, it could (and
should to protect it) be distributed under the GPL.  That's what I
didn't like about Japhar switching from GPL licensing to LGPL, but I
understand why the developers of Japhar wanted to do it and that's ok.

If I've screwed up any of that recollection Paul, Aaron, just say so.

Brian
-- 
|-------------------------------|Software Engineer
|Brian Jones			|cbj at nortel.net
|cbj at gnu.org			|http://www.nortel.net
|http://www.classpath.org/      |------------------------------