Re: Use of GPL'd code with proprietary programs

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Sat, 2004-07-10 at 14:58 +0200, Martin Dickopp wrote:
> cstacy@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> > A third scenario would be a Java JAR file.  In what way is this
> > different than a TAR file, which is merely an aggregation?
> 
> Obviously, a work does not become a derivative of another work just
> because both are put into the same archive file.  OTOH, the fact that
> two files are in the same archive does not guarantee that one is /not/ a
> derivative of the other - it is easy to put a derivative work together
> with the original work in the same TAR file.  Therefore, I think the
> fact that two files are in the same archive is irrelevant in judging if
> one is a derivative of the other.
> 
> I'm not familiar with how Java works, but I'm suspicious of any claim
> that the fact that two files are in the same archive can be used to
> decide (in either direction) whether one is a derivative work of the
> other.

JAR files are a weird case.
Basically, it depends on how they are used.

In practice:

   mv zbr.jar zbr.zip
   unzip -l zbr.zip

    wonder at how jar files are nothing but renamed zips!

However, that's just a technical detail. Otherwise, why not call
them .zip?

Because .JAR is intended to be like a pluggeable set of classes that are
called in some way. The fact that it is a zip file and may carry other
stuff is irrelevant. It is a zip file, but it could not be in the future
(extremely unlikely, though).

In object oriented programming you don't include a lbrary. You define a
set of classes and create foreign objects that you interact with,
passing them messages and such.

That's much less intimate than normal libraries. In Java it only runs on
the same address space because the JVM is one process. However, it is
also a virtualization of a machine, so it's like having several programs
connecting to a message pool and listening to messages they understand.

Rui

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