Re: mini vote

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 10:45:31AM -0400, Stuart Ballard wrote:
> Brian Jones wrote:
> > 
> > I'm interested in finding out if the majority of developers would like
> > to see the AWT placed under the same license (GPL + exception) that
> > other Classpath libraries are licensed with.  If you think the AWT
> > library should use the same license, reply with some form of "Yes" and
> > otherwise respond with "No."  Additional comments on why you feel one
> > way or the other are welcome.
> [...] 
> Transvirtual has been good to the free software community, so we don't
> want to interfere with their business model". Personally, I don't think
> that just because a company has been good to free software entitles them
> to a perpetual "non-compete" agreement from the rest of the community -

I do agree with you here, but why should we now switch companies?
Cygnus/RedHat has been good to the Free Software community but they
also didn't license their implementation of the AWT under the LGPL.
Since they refuse to do that should we now change our license again
because it is more convenient for them?

GPL+Exception is a better license to use then the LGPL if you make
embedded devices since you do not have to provide a 'plug point' for the
libary that the LGPL demands (and I understand that that means you have to
have some sort of shared library functionality and that is difficult
to implement on really small devices). But I think the LGPL is better
for the users of the software since they will get the opportunity to
switch the library for a version that they control completely.

Since the AWT uses native peers that are implemented using GTK+ which
is already licensed under the LGPL I don't think it matters that much
if the java portion is licensed under the LGPL or GPL+Exception.
And if you are building a embedded device which includes AWT support
I would think that you have enough space and power support in the device
for LGPL (shared library) support. (But I have to admit that I have no
experience with small devices, so I might be completely wrong.)

The strange thing is that since RedHat did assign the copyright of
their (partial) AWT implementation to the FSF (since it is now part
of the GNU Compiler Collection) the GNU project is now distributing
two incomplete versions of the AWT under two different licenses.

I do think that having all of Classpath under the same license is a
very good thing. But if that license will be the GPL+Exception we better
make sure that everybody (including people that doubt the language
that is used for the exception currently) is happy about it.

Cheers,

Mark
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