Waiting for license resolutions (was: Re: Code contribution to harmony)

[Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com>]

Mark Wielaard wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-11-09 at 16:56 +0000, Tim Ellison wrote:
><snip>
>>I agree that getting a resolution to the community/licensing differences
>>would be fantastic.  I don't see that happening quickly, and I don't
>>want to see the success or failure of a development project gated upon
>>it.  IMHO resolving license issues is a board-level objective, not a
>>J2SE-project objective.  We can hack code and live in hope :-)
> 
>
> I believe people are really reluctant to hack on the code while there is
> a legal limbo whether it can be included into the other code bases out
> there

I hope that I've misunderstood your comments Mark, because it would of
course be wrong for people to suspend development on FSF and ASF java
implementations -- jchevm, bootJVM, classpath, kaffe, etc. while
awaiting a resolution of the 'legal limbo'.

> and whether it is meant as a project to enhance all the existing
> projects or just another project on the side. So I see resolving this
> issues as a high priority.

I wasn't involved in writing the Harmony project proposal, but it seems
to be quite clearly targeting a java implementation and not a generic
license compatibility project.  I suggest that a java-only resolution
would be sub-optimal anyway.

However, I have no influence in the FSF or ASF :-) so I'll refrain from
further debate, like others on the list who are clearly smarter than me!


Regards,
Tim

-- 

Tim Ellison (t.p.ellison@gmail.com)
IBM Java technology centre, UK.

Re: Waiting for license resolutions (was: Re: Code contribution to harmony)

[Mark Wielaard <ma...@klomp.org>]

Hi Tim,

On Sun, 2005-11-13 at 23:32 +0000, Tim Ellison wrote:
> Mark Wielaard wrote:
> > I believe people are really reluctant to hack on the [new] code
> > while there is a legal limbo whether it can be included into the
> > other code bases out there
> 
> I hope that I've misunderstood your comments Mark, because it would of
> course be wrong for people to suspend development on FSF and ASF java
> implementations -- jchevm, bootJVM, classpath, kaffe, etc. while
> awaiting a resolution of the 'legal limbo'.

Of course. (I added the word new to clarify.) What I meant was that
people are really reluctant to make efforts collaborating while there is
a legal limbo whether the resulting code can be mixed and matched with
their existing projects. Since currently this new code is only available
under the ASLv2 there is nothing much to do then wait for a resolution
that makes the code available under terms that are usable to the
existing projects that value being GPL-compatible. I am hopeful however
that might happen soon. But I know there are a lot of people skeptical
so we have to show them that this is really what we want. There is
enough to do on GNU Classpath and the other projects so don't worry
about suspending development while making the license resolutions
happen. But clearly it would be nicer if the legal limbo was resolved
and we could actually integrate and merge the code.

> > and whether it is meant as a project to enhance all the existing
> > projects or just another project on the side. So I see resolving this
> > issues as a high priority.
> 
> I wasn't involved in writing the Harmony project proposal, but it seems
> to be quite clearly targeting a java implementation and not a generic
> license compatibility project.  I suggest that a java-only resolution
> would be sub-optimal anyway.

Right. Geir has made apologies for the original announcement so lets not
go there again. You can read all about it in the mailinglist archives
and the blogs around that time if you are really interested. Clearly
several people wouldn't have signed the original proposal if the main
goal wasn't collaboration and trying to resolve any (perceived legal)
barriers for cooperation and reusing as much common code as possible.
But we did sign it because we agreed to work on harmony between the
communities. The poorly worded announcement didn't make that very clear.
But we unfortunately didn't have any say in that because it was never
sent for review.

> However, I have no influence in the FSF or ASF :-) so I'll refrain from
> further debate, like others on the list who are clearly smarter than me!

Of course you have influence! And I haven't seen anybody on this list
smarter then you. Just give your opinion on how this issue should be
solved. There have been several proposals on the list. Most people seem
to favor asking all contributors to make sure that code is available
under terms that are both ASL and GPL compatible. Maybe you have an
opinion on that. Then you could say so. Or maybe being the originator of
the patch, as in IBM, you could just make an example of how you think it
should be done and make the contribution (also) available under terms
that are acceptable to all parties involved. We are all peers and your
actions and opinions shape those of the group as a whole.

Cheers,

Mark

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