[OT?] Sun/Java licensing
Chuck Swiger
cswiger at mac.com
Sun Aug 1 10:18:50 PDT 2004
Bill Moran wrote:
> I'm going to start doing Java development, and I'm trying to make sure
> that all my legal ducks are in a row. Can someone point me to a
> document that explains what's up with Java licensing.
There are two licenses you care about, the one with the Java 1.4 SDK, which says:
B. Redistribution. This Agreement does not grant you the right to
redistribute Software. Please refer to the following URL for information
regarding the redistribution of Software if you are interested in redistribution:
http://sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/appsrvr_oem.html
...in other words, Sun would like to sell you a license to run the software in
production. However, you don't have to do that if you don't want to, as the
other license for the Java Runtime Environment, at:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/j2re-1_4_2_05-license.txt
...is freely available, and is what your end-users will need to accept in
order to run your programs.
> I mean, if I install jdk14 to develop java apps, can I resell those apps?
Sure, you own the software you write-- obviously providing you don't include
any of Sun's code with your software, indemnify Sun against all evil, etc etc.
> There was a warning that said something about not redistributing binaries,
> but it's too vague to tell me whether that means bytecode genereated by the
> java compiler, or binaries that would result from me tweaking the jdk
> itself.
That's correct. You're not supposed to tweak the JRE itself, nor write
software which changes things like how the java.* and com.sun.* packages work.
[ No, Virginia, Java is not OSI open source. :-)]
--
-Chuck
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