[kaffe] Using kaffe(GPL2) with other DFSG-compat licenses

[Dalibor Topic]

--- Grzegorz Prokopski <gadek at debian.org> wrote:
> W li¶cie z pon, 05-08-2002, godz. 20:17, Jim Pick
> pisze: 

> IMHO it would be good to have lawyer opinion written
> sowewhere in public
> place like some ml. I am not sure (people at
> debian-legal should know
> better) but if that hasn't been said publicly yet -
> it would be
> needed.
> 
> Especially if the lawyer you're talking about is
> from FSF and we can
> count on that in his opinion that GPLed kaffe VM and
> it's libs can be
> used with GPL-incompatible software.

Even that would not save you from the threat of being
sued as FSF doesn't hold the copyright of kaffe, so an
"O.K." from their lawyer may mean nothing to people
holding copyright on parts of kaffe, expecially
whoever (if anyone) picks up the remains of
Transvirtual.

> It looks messy for me ATM and in this state... it's
> hard to build on
> moving sands... we need a rock.

maybe simply using gcj is a better option for debian,
as the copyright belongs to the FSF, the license has a
linking exception, they only accept significant
contributions after people have signed the paperwork,
etc. If the compiler seems to have bugs, use jikes.

> > > For example, what if we had JVM from kaffe
> (GPLed) but used it with
> > > gnu classlib (GPL+linking exception clause)?
> Does it change anything?
> > In the worst case scenario, everything is GPL'd.  
> If that's the case - most of us can forget about
> kaffe today.

Well, in the worst case scenario, not everything has
to be GPLd, it has to be GPL-compatible, which
includes a few more licenses than just GPL. (Otherwise
kaffe couldn't ship with its Transvirtual's LGPLd RMI
implementation, for example). But it would exclude the
ASL.

In worst-case-plus-using-GNU-classpath case, this
would mean that the exception would have to go, as it
could not be extended to code outside of GNU
classpath. That stripping would make it GPL, which
would be allowed by the classpath license.

best regards,

dalibor topic


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