Ricky Clarkson <ricky.clarkson <at> gmail.com> writes: > I think the JRE is a bit more lenient, but I hardly ever use just a > JRE, so I don't read the licence for that very often.
from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/j2re-1_4_2_05-license.txt "B.License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including, but not limited to the Java Technology Restrictions of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce and distribute the Software, provided that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified (unless otherwise specified in the applicable README file) and only bundled as part of, and for the sole purpose of running, your Programs," the 'unmodified' bit would prohibit distribution of debian packages that fix the shell scripts for debian, for example (unless some README says so). [snip] "(iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software (unless otherwise specified in the applicable README file)," conflicts with, for example, distributing free runtimes, compilers or jar tools, as far as I can tell from it. [snip] "(v) you only distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun's interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement," That's essentially a joker to sue at will if Sun feels endangered in their interest. Someone replaces JDS with Debian? Sue 'em for not protecting Sun's interest :) "and (vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software." Unless someone wants to foot Sun's bill for anyone Sun's legal department decides to sue, that casually happens to have installed j2re from non-free via apt, that's not an option, I guess. On a side note, all the references to 'applicable README' are really unhelpful to understand the precise licensing terms. It means that you can't see everything that you are agreeing to in the click-wrap license. So if some intern at Sun sneaks in 'and if you are using Debian, you agree to pay Sun a $699 license fee' into some 'applicable' README, that you can not read when you accept the license, you're bound to have some fun in court. Non-free licenses are there to screw you. Avoid them. IANAL, and all that. cheers, dalibor topic
