[CentOS] java

Thu May 3 18:15:47 UTC 2007
Lance Davis <lance at centos.org>

On Thu, 3 May 2007, Les Mikesell wrote:

> Lance Davis wrote:
>
>>>> Would it be possible to have Sun's JDK in a CentOS repository using
>>>> Sun DLJ license? This license allows the binary JDK redistribution by
>>>> linux distributions (as far as I know Ubuntu includes the JDK under
>>>> this license).
>>> 
>>> we had a look at this a long time back, when the DLJ was announced 
>>> initially - and we didnt think it was open enough for us to ship Java, 
>>> also there are some legal issues that seem grey and the only response we 
>>> could get from Sun was along the lines of  'go speak to your lawyers'.
>>> 
>>> We dont really have any layers, so we wont be speaking to them :)
>> 
>> The main issue is that Sun insist that we accept liability for 3rd party 
>> use - whilst Mark Shuttleworth has deep enough pockets - we dont ....
>> 
>> We are trying to work with Sun to remove this requirement though.
>
> I don't see how, regardless of what the Sun agreement says, you could be 
> held any more or less responsible for redistributing java than any other 
> software component you redistribute.  That is, someone would have to 
> successfully sue over damages from a software flaw first and if people could 
> do that, Microsoft would have been out of business many years ago.  And it is 
> bound to be less buggy than the version you do distribute...

Yes - but indemnification of Sun for their legal fees is more than the 
developers want to commit to .....

Regards
Lance

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