It does not licence derivatives of the precious SSO in the copyright protected
Java API Specification. The specification is not a program and is not covered by
the GPL.
We don't agree that the API SSO is protectable under copyright
law. Oracle are still battling it out in the court.
The only licence
that Oracle accept in order to use the protected SSO is the TCK, as made clear
in the TCK licence. Citing the very name of the GPL OpenJDK in the title makes
it quite clear that they will not allow anything that is not substantially the
same as OpenJDK to have a licence to the SSO. If that were not the case, why
even refer to the OpenJDK in the title of the TCK licence? What does passing the
TCK entitle an implementer to do according to the licence? The only reason
Oracle have for associating the TCK licence terms with the OpenJDK is to prevent
OpenJDK forking and to end-of-life the work of the Harmony project.
OPENJDK COMMUNITY TCK LICENSE AGREEMENT V 1.1
1.0
DEFINITIONS
1.1 “Compatible Licensee Implementation” means a Licensee
Implementation that (i) fully implements the Java Specification, including all
its required interfaces and functionality; (ii) does not modify, subset,
superset or otherwise extend the Licensor Name Space, or include any public or
protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields, methods or constructors
within the Licensor Name Space other than those required/authorized by the
Specification or Specifications being implemented; and (iii) passes the TCK
(including satisfying the requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for
such Specification.
2.0 LICENSE GRANTS
2.1 License Grant for
the TCK. (a) Limited Grant. Subject to and conditioned upon its Licensee
Implementation being substantially derived from OpenJDK Code and, if such
Implementation has or is to be distributed to a third party, its being
distributed under the GPL License, Oracle hereby grants to Licensee, to the
extent of Oracle's Intellectual Property Rights in the TCK, a worldwide,
personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to use the TCK
internally and solely for the purpose of developing and testing Licensee
Implementation. No license is granted for any other purpose, including any of
the activities described in Section 2.1(b).
If Oracle lose their
case on the API copyrights, then both OpenJDK and the Harmony project are
available to Google to cherry pick for code.
However, Google's work is
already complete using the Harmony project and it has the benefit that it can be
chopped and changed to suit without each manufacturer's flavour being returned
to the community. That is the perceived value of the Apache licence. Google
still keep the Android core free and open. It is a way of getting more
manufacturers into the fold who are scared of the GPL.
The right to use
the 'Java' trademark is a red herring. Nothing in the licence to TCK even refers
to it. If you cannot change OpenJDK substantially then the 'freedom' of the GPL
has, in effect, been stifled by licence conditions on a closed program (the TCK)
and enforced by copyright on an non-open and free document (the Java API
Specification).
Oracle don't need to talk about the use of the 'Java'
trademark in the TCK licence because, if they win over the API copyrights,
OpenJDK is and always will be Oracle's Java.
The only OpenJDK that you
can use is the Oracle OpenJDK with the further benefit that they get to steal
back any 'unsubstantial' community improvements made to
it.
---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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