JCP Conflict

The current JCP conflict is not about the GPL at all. It is all about Java being competitive Free Software or not.

The current JCP conflict is not about the GPL at all. It is all about Java being competitive Free Software or not. Sacha Lebourey has already made the point on how recent Sun movements are the most optimal way to get all the negatives without getting all the positives:

You own that brand, so do something real that justifies breaking this subtle equilibrium you’ve built over the years, not a quick-and-dirty something under the carpet.

And now, as Mr Schwartz reminded everybody renaming SUNW to JAVA at Nasdaq, a healthy Java is crucial for Sun Microsystems. I’m not sure how the misconception is happening, and even "Sun’s VP for software gets it completely wrong, but the FSF is on the same side as the ASF in this conflict. I have not read or heard otherwise from anyone related with Free Software, either officially or in a personal blog, and I would be grateful if someone corrects me if I’m wrong.

If the FSF would be offered a license under similar terms , they would be forced to reject it, as it violates freedom 2:

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

Not every neighbor is allowed to get a copy under a FoU restricted License. Also, a license specifying such conditions would not be acceptable as an Open Source license by the OSI, as it would violate at least:

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

of the Open Source Definition. restricting effectively what can the software certified used for (Field of Use restrictions).
This is something that, as far as I can tell, violates the GPL too. In fact the FSF has stated publicly that Field of Use restrictions violate section 7 of the GPL v2:

Thus, these “field of use” restrictions would prevent implementation of W3C standards as Free Software. “Field of use” restrictions are also legally incompatible with section 7 of the GNU General Public License, since it does not allow the user’s freedom to modify to be shrunk to zero in this way.

This is from the official FSF position on the W3 Consortium patent policy. Sun, according to Rich Green recent post quoted earlier, will accept any certified GPL implementation so long as it is the ONE OpenJDK they host, or significant derivatives of it. I quote from Dalibor Topic take on it:

It (rather obviously, as OpenJDK is under the GPL, and the GPL does not allow further restrictions) doesn’t have any downstream ‘field of use’ restrictions on the certified binaries. It requires an implementation to be under the GPL, and to be significantly derived from OpenJDK.

No other GPL codebases will be allowed to be certified. This includes, as far as I can tell, that neither GNU classpath, GCJ or kaffe will get the JCK. Correct me if I’m wrong. Dalibor ends saying:

It’ll take getting a bunch of those companies to figure out they are better off with an ubiquitous, free software, verifiably compatible Java platform in the long run, rather than just one or two of them.
That is the really important battle to fight, in my opinion.

Agreed. The Apache Software Foundation is fighting it. A lot of companies in the JCP are supporting the ASF. The ASF has been a part of it for a lot of time, and pushed for it to be relevant for the free software movement at times where it was difficult to argue against those who said that java was a proprietary platform. We keep pushing for a free java, in spite of Sun’s efforts to sink it (quoting Sacha again: They are not respecting the JCP rules they have themselves defined.). See Geir Magnussen slides for the F2F meeting that took place recently for an example of constructive proposal.
Now, why did I say competitive in the first paragraph? Because no healthy ecosystem can survive without some evolution going on. Evolution, don’t forget it, is mutation plus selection. I don’t believe in a world where we can only have one certified OpenJDK, controlled by Sun, and one proprietary Sun JDK. In such a world BEA’s, Apple’s or IBM’s Virtual Machines will disappear, as well as kaffe, GCJ and harmony. No diversity means no or slower evolution, and additionally makes The Big Brother a single point of failure for the whole ecosystem.
I finish quoting a response that Jim Jagielski gave to Geir’s statement java is too important, in the jcp-open@apache.org list. I think it gives a good summary of the feelings of a lot of members of what used to be called the java community:

No - the way Sun is playing this, we all lose. We ned to fix this. Java is too important.
(...) In other words, if Sun continues down this path, which will invariably lead to Java becoming less and less significant due to the community finally having reached their fill of all this funny business, another language and “technology” will for sure take its place.