On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 22:27 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Sunday 30 December 2007, Craig White wrote: > >On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 15:16 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: > >> On Sunday 30 December 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > >> >Les Mikesell wrote: > >> >> The bigger problem is distributing something that is not java > >> >> compatable but executing it with the java name. Microsoft tried to > >> >> promote an incompatible program that similarly fit their agenda with > >> >> the java name and Sun successfully sued them over it. The > >> >> fedora-shipped not-java program that executes with the java name does > >> >> just as much damage and shouldn't be named java until it passes the > >> >> compatibility tests. I'm surprised fedora's legal dept. allowed this > >> >> abuse of a trademarked name. > >> > > >> >That's because trademark does not apply to filenames. Sun doesn't > >> >consider classpath or GCJ as damage to Java in any way and has even used > >> >the same license classpath originally had for their new openjdk effort. > >> >IcedTea is a free and open source derivative of OpenJDK and included in > >> >Fedora 8 by default and Sun has continued to use that as a prototype to > >> >remove the binary encumbrances in their code. Once OpenJDK becomes > >> >completely open source, Fedora will include that by default. > >> > > >> >Besides a compatible version of Java requires signing a test suite which > >> >until recently came with onerous restrictions that has been lifted and > >> >paved the way to better compatibility. > >> > > >> >http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/11/05/red-hat-helps-advance-open-source- > >> >jav a/ > >> > > >> >Rahul > >> > >> Excellent news, Rahul. Unforch not in time for F8, F9 maybe? > > > >---- > >you should have followed the links in the article which would have > >brought you to... > > > >http://labs.jboss.com/community/interviews/sacha_sun.html > > > >which actually answers that and more > > > >Craig > > Maybe. The pointlessness of this thread seems lost on about half the posters > though. Generally speaking, I'm in the same camp as Les, I just want it to > work. If I have to go put a virtual quarter in the meter, so be it. All the > political posturing in the world is of little or no use to the majority of us > if it results in something being non-functional when it works flawlessly for > the other 97% of the people on this planet running a windwoes install, legal > or not. ---- evidently you have missed some of the finer points of this discussion. First off, it wasn't Windows but rather Solaris where Sun's Java works across the board. Secondly, while Sun audits the code and releases the code as GPL, this code now has a home on Fedora 8 and future Fedora & Red Hat releases. Thirdly, Les is complaining about the GNU version of java which actually permits all of the various software to run cross platform which may not be significant to you but it does mean that my various Macintosh PPC's can actually run java programs and I would be sucking wind if I was waiting for Sun to release a version of Java that works on Fedora on a PPC. This more or less replicates Les' contentiousness towards GNU and GPL license stuff because he is desperately interested in running proprietary software without hassle and blames kernel developers, GPL license and Red Hat / Fedora packages for the problems which come from vendors who want to only provide binary software. Craig
