So how can Debian use this?

Posted May 17, 2006 19:17 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (guest, #2330)
Parent article: Java becomes more distributable

Debian officially maintains that non-free is "not part of Debian". If the license only allows distributors to include their Java as a bundled component with the OS, then doesn't that rule out putting it in the separate non-free archive? After all, the article above says that the license doesn't bless inclusion in third-party archives (livna.org and such).

Or is there something I'm missing? Or are some Debian folks trying to have it both ways -- non-free is part of Debian so we can have Java. non-free is not part of Debian so we don't violate the DFSG.

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So how can Debian use this?

Posted May 17, 2006 22:49 UTC (Wed) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link] (1 responses)

You may be right, but I think it's up to Sun to complain. The non-free repository does have a somewhat ambiguous relationship to Debian. Sun says they want it to be part of OSes, and the non-free repository is as close as Debian will allow it to being part of Debian. If that turns out to be insufficient, I'm sure Debian will be perfectly happy to remove it again.

Debian is also not going to remove the truly free java clones like gjc and kaffe from their main archive, so, again, that's a place where there may be issues, but if Sun complains, I'm sure Debian will be happy to toss their precious "real java" back in trash bin.

Like you, I'm a little surprised that Debian jumped on this so quickly, but I would tend to suspect that they're just testing the waters.

So how can Debian use this?

Posted May 18, 2006 6:02 UTC (Thu) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link]

Quick followup to my earlier comment. The announcement sent to the Debian Developers Announcement List says, "During the past weeks there has been close collaboration between Sun engineers and Debian and Ubuntu developers." Which definitely implies (or at least suggests) that Sun is both aware of and amenable to Debian's actions in this, and is thus unlikely to complain.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/05/msg...

As for Debian's side, well, in my experience, they tend to be very strict about what goes in main, and very liberal about what goes in non-free, so I'm not really surprised by all this. And if there are still unresolved issues (and I agree that it seems like there might be), I'm sure the people who love to debate license terms on the Debian lists will be discussing them soon enough.

So how can Debian use this?

Posted May 18, 2006 14:44 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

FWIW, some Debian folks are wondering about this question themselves; here is the beginning of the thread which discusses these clauses.

Sun's response on debian-legal

Posted May 20, 2006 23:30 UTC (Sat) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Tom Marble from Sun has responded on debian-legal. The new thread begins here:

Sun responds to questions on the DLJ

(Personally, I wish they would fix the license instead of continually referring to a FAQ that explicitly states it is not legally binding. However, at least a public dialogue has begun.)