last updated at 04 Jul, 2006 19:02 (1 times)
eros2 (02 Jul, 2006 07:33):
Sources of Java 5 (Tiger) opened for long time, year or more... Java 6 (Mustang) was open source from beginning, Sun release source snapshots weekly - http://download.java.net/jdk6/
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't find the Java Research License (JRL) http://www.java.net/jrl.csp very open source friendly. Particularly these sections:
6. What code is supported under the JRL?Sun is supporting the JRL for most Java technologies it releases through the Java Community Process as well as research projects surrounding this code.
7. Does this license require a click-through acceptance of terms?
Yes. For enforceability, Sun requires a click-through license.
8. When do I need to get a commercial license?
This research license is only for initial research and development projects. If you decide to use your project internally for a productive use, and/or distribute your product to others, you must sign a commercial agreement such as the Java Distribution License (JDL) and meet the Java compatibility requirements.
Maybe I should restate my comment above as not as open source to what I'm used to seeing. This is open source only on Sun's terms. It's the distribution that isn't open source. What good is open source code without open source distributables, in this case?
From the Java Distribution License (JDL) https://tiger.dev.java.net/JDL_June21_2005_info.pdf
V. FEES. In consideration of the license grants provided herein, You agree to pay Sun the nonrefundable Annual Free, if any, as set forth in Exhibit A. The first Annual Fee payment is due upon the execution of this License by You; thereafter, the Annual Fee is due and payable on each anniversary date of the License. You are responsible for payment of all taxes.
How much does this JDL cost? What does it mean for the OS/2-eCS community? Who would be able to pay the licensing fees?
Golden Code Development (GCD) could get the port done more quickly as they have the 1.4 build system and OS/2 specific code they created that could be brought up to 1.6/6 levels. But they haven't had any clients say they'd pay for the labor and licensing.
The OS/2-eCS community definitely could port the JDK; distribution becomes the sticking point.
Also, 1.6/6 relies on 1.5/5 for bootstrapping. Since we wouldn't be interested in distributing 1.5/5 this is where the JRL would come into play to create the 1.6/6 OS/2 port.
Until Sun changes its JDL to be small community friendly, I'm not seeing how it can be done for OS/2 users. The good news is, under the JRL, we can keep the ports up-to-date until such time Sun does make a small community friendly JDL since the previous version of the JDK is needed to bootstrap.
I wonder, can the class/jar files from either the Windows or Linux distributions be used instead of doing the bootstrap process? Thereby, only building the native executables would only be needed.
Well, lots of issues to think about.