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The TCK for OpenJDK doesn't cost money and doesn't contain any field of use restrictions | 396 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Can you safely use the GPL'ed OpenJDK
Authored by: jvillain on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 11:12 PM EDT
That looks correct to me. But I would add the caveat that Sun/Oracle are
probably in violation of the GPL by trying to put restrictions of use on the GPL
code. Now on the one hand that violation doesn't matter as OSS projects usually
don't have the money to fight it. So the OSS projects usually take it in the
shorts.

On the other hand. Every company I can think of that has treated the OSS
community in this manner has felt the wrath of the community sooner or later. A
prime example being Oracle. Larry spent 8.5 billion then treated his new toys
like garbage. So they said F' it and up and left. Now Larry is in court
desperately trying to save the last piece of that investment.

Another good example is SSH. They open sourced their product. The community
embraced it did oodles of development for it. When it got to the point where it
was rock solid they tried to close it again. Instant fork. The only place you
will see the original SSH is on hardware that can not ever be updated or
replaced. Every one else uses open-ssl.

But assuming there is a finding that the inventor can't use the API like a Sword
of Damocles then most of your steps are moot with the exception of the patent
grants. But Oracle like Microsoft and others doesn't need Java to come sue you
for patents if you have some thing they want or they just don't like you or it's
Wednesday or ...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Can you safely use the GPL'ed OpenJDK
Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 11:38 PM EDT
Do any of you guys have, or know for sure, what
exactly you get in the way of patents licensing
if you pass the compatibility test and pay for
a license?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • patent license - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 02:57 AM EDT
GPLv2 does grant patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 03:45 AM EDT
GPLv2 does grant patents, GPLv3 is more explicit and contains a
"retaliation" clause, which some people find more satisfying.

See http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2#Patent_grant:_section_6

Which means that:

"OpenJDK is has been distributed by Oracle under GPLv2.[1] GPLv2 includes
two implicit patent licences, so users of OpenJDK should be safe, and modified
versions of OpenJDK should also be safe (even if they're heavily modified).

The protections in the GPL are unconditional. The software doesn't have to
comply with any specifications in order to benefit from these
protections."

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Java_and_patents#OpenJDK:_the_GPLv2_Java_from_Oracle

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The TCK for OpenJDK doesn't cost money and doesn't contain any field of use restrictions
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 03:49 AM EDT
There is no cost to the TCK for OpenJDK. But it does come with an NDA. There is
no explicit trademark grant for Java in it. And there are also no field of use
restrictions. You can find how to get access and the actual legal documents
here: http://openjdk.java.net/groups/conformance/

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The TCK for OpenJDK gives no right to use Sun trademarks like the name 'Java' nor the teacup .nt
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 05:00 AM EDT
.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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