[CentOS] Firefox and Java on CentOS 4.1 - [OT] Java redistribution

[Bryan J. Smith]

DISCLAIMER:  Off-topic, useless to CentOS, killfile me, etc...

On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 08:43 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> If Sun wanted to let other people make decisions about how Java should
> work and be distributed, they would just change the license...

Actually, that's not the problem.

For at least the JRE (not sure about the JDK) on Windows and Solaris,
Sun allows free redistribution.  On Linux, Sun does not, and this is
clearly a market-driven move.

Red Hat and SuSE have signed licenses to redistribute on their non-
distributable versions, but Sun will not allow likewise on their freely
redistributable versions.

But yes, it would be nice to see Java, at least the JRE, released under
at least a MPL-like license, removing this non-sense.  It's the only
area where IBM has been "more community friendly" than Sun.**

-- Bryan

<mega-OT>
**NOTE:  In fairness to Sun, they usually do best IBM on donations.
Solaris is becoming MPL-like, whereas AIX is not, and OpenOffice is
LGPL, among other Sun MPL/GPL donations (including GPL kernel
code/development, like NFSv4 and other contributions).  As much as IBM
is promoting Linux, they are also promoting AIX -- to the point of
forcing some clients to buy AIX solutions instead of Linux, and then
forbidden them (via contract) when they look at HP Linux solutions
(especially Opteron like the DL585).
</mega-OT>

-- 
Bryan J. Smith     b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The best things in life are NOT free - which is why life is easiest if
you save all the bills until you can share them with the perfect woman