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Day 4, Thursday, Oracle v. Google ~ pj | 270 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Day 4, Thursday, Oracle v. Google ~ pj
Authored by: Ed L. on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 11:17 PM EDT
You are missing "GPL with Classpath Exception", which does for included class libraries (Java, C++ STL) what LGPL does for linked libraries.

---
Real Programmers mangle their own memory.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Day 4, Thursday, Oracle v. Google ~ pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 11:40 PM EDT
The Java specifications are <b>not</b> released under GPL. The
OpenJDK
implementation is under GPLv2, with something called the classpath exception
which says that code loaded at runtime does not fall under copy-left. Note that

Google chose not to base their implementation on forking OpenJDK.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

GPL & Copyright...
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 11:43 PM EDT
There are a few issues here:
1. The terms of the GPL are not met unless the derivative is
GPL also. Without meeting the terms of the GPL, there is no
license to use the copyrighted works.
2. The GPL applies to software (or other works) released
under the GPL; it does NOT automatically apply to
documentation of GPL software.

3. However, the GPL grants permission to use the source for
any purpose. Reverse engineering may be considered a purpose,
as long as any "derivative works" are released under the GPL.
Some nations also guarantee the right to reverse-engineer
software.
If you reverse-engineer and do a dirty-room implementation
(IE, programmers who investigated the behavior of the
original product also prepare the new product) it is
possible to have a derivative work due to copying.
This appears to be the subject of debate here, judging from
certain comments...
However, even if there was copying, there's one question: is
the copied material a) not subject to copyright, or b) within
the bounds of fair use?
Google is arguing that anything duplicated (what would
more-or-less be the headers, if it was C) was either not
copyrightable or automatically within the scope of fair use.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Day 4, Thursday, Oracle v. Google ~ pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 20 2012 @ 04:02 AM EDT
Android's java implementation uses the apache license, not the GPL.

How is the GPL is relevant at all? If Google had used GPL anything in building
dalvik (and I'm not suggesting they did), they'd be in violation of the GPL.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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