[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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