Re: Classpath future?

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 01:12:50PM -0400, Etienne M. Gagnon wrote:
> 
> Yes I find your work important, and I know other people that do.  Many 
> concerns I have discussed are shared by these people.
> 
> Please follow up on the "GPL exception" proposition above.

I do do think the wording you suggest is clearer then the current
wording we use now. But I don't think we should change the license (now).
The license has been agreed upon and I am only willing to discuss changing
it if there is a very clear benefit. So if you are saying I have written
a java.nio or java.swing package and I am only willing to donate it to
the Classpath project if you change the license then I am all ears.

The license is currently acceptable to the Classpath hackers, to the
GCC maintainers and different Free (and non free) VM and compiler
projects. The license was also choosen because it was based on the
wording that was used in the C++ standard library licence.
We should only discuss changing the current license if we can guarantee
that all these projects and the GNU project as a whole will be better off.
So if we could somehow come to a license or licensing scheme that could
be used by the bigger GNU (java) project, then we might consider it.
But only if we have the feeling that all these parties are actually
willing to discuss (and eventually change) their licensing.

Please give me a clear (concrete) incentive to even consider the question
of a license change.

The same holds for the copyright assignment to the FSF. I think it has
been shown that this does hold up some contributions and I hope we can
streamline the process a bit. But again this is a bigger GNU issue.
Are there any examples of (big) contributions of code that didn't happen
because someone didn't want or couldn't get the copyright assigned to
the FSF? If people go through the trouble of assigning copyright you can
be sure that they are serious in helping the project.

I do appreciate all the issues you brought up Etienne and I am happy to
see that there is so much discussion about all the topics now on the list.
So I hope this email doesn't sound to arrogant, but I have seen license
discussion often being very unproductive (flamewars) and take up a lot
of energy (because it is an important issue) but without a clear indication
of any gains to the project.

Cheers,

Mark
-- 
Stuff to read:
    <http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html>
  What's Wrong with Copy Protection, by John Gilmore