Michael K. Edwards wrote:
[Regarding the compatibility of a GPL JVM with Java code under other
licenses; cross-posted from debian-java to debian-legal]
[cut noise about FSF]
But if the Kaffe copyright holders interpret the relationship between
Java bytecode and GPL code to be loose enough not to create a
derivative work, I think they have at least US case law behind them.
The relationship between GPL, interpreters and bytecode has been
rehashed here already before (with the same participants, old hat, and
all that ;):
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/11/msg00010.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/11/msg00026.html
As you can see, bytecode does not necessarily make the relationship
looser. Nevertheless, the claim that is made by a particular developer
of a 'competing' VM project on debian-java about running Eclipse on
Kaffe being illegal, is wrong, in my non-lawyerish opinion, because
Eclipse's source code or bytecode does not derive specifically from
Kaffe's interpreter or class library, afaik, but uses 'standard' Java
APIs all the way. Just as explained above in the links.
cheers,
dalibor topic
