Hello Joke, J.M. Evers a écrit : > Dear Georges, > > I'm not sure I understand the issue.
During my debian new member application, I have been taught about the importance of proper licensing. Debian an Ubuntu (as many Debian derivatives also) are becoming mature software distributions, and they can be used to earn money. Some companies have lawiers teams whose daily work is to sue whichever competing organisation may infringe their patent pool. As Debian is mature and begins to have some economical weight, legal issues may occur. > In the applets I've uploaded to wims there is no license, because > there is no need for that: "No copyrights. All amateur scriblings" This is OK. So you release your work as Public Domain stuff. --------------------8<-------------------------- georges:~/developpement/wims/wims-4.00/wims/public_html/scripts/authors/jm.evers$ grep -ri 'no copyrights$' . ./applets/src/rooster.java:// This is all amateur scriblings...so No Copyrights --------------------8<-------------------------- However this declaration is not homogeneously applied to the java code you authored, as it appers in only one file. Legal stuff is always boring for us developers, and it can be our Achille's heel. I believe that every part of Wims which is currently released in the Debian package is correctly covered by the various authors and the licenses they adopted (mainly by Gang Xiao's copyright which enforces the GPL licensing). The code I had to remove due to license insecurity can be fed back into the distribution as soon as the license issues ar fixed. I can do that work by myself, or with your help, if you have enough time to provide it. Nevertheless, the Debian packaging has already a net advantage: beginners can install in a matter of a few clicks with their favorite package manager. Then, if they find something wrong in the installation, they can use the updating utilities featured by Wims itself. As their system has resolved any dependency at that time, the compilation can be done smoothly. > If the applet makes use some additional library, like the "javia" > math-library (Apache License) or the "atp" tex-library (GNU/GPL ), > the used library source with license is included in the source. > > If the applet is only a minor modification inorder to communicate > with wims, the original author & license are present in the source > code [like Zirkel, WIMSchem/Sketchel, JCM , Plinko]. So I shall begin to review the licenses, which may inply in some cases to contact other upstream authors. I shall keep you informed about the progress of that task. Can you write me a list of the source codes whose licenses you can ensure immediately, in order to feed them back into the distribution quickly? > Furthermore the applets are all -I hope- compiled for "java 1.4" > using FreeBSD's Diabolo JDK [amongst others ; > diablo-jdk-freebsd6.i386.1.6.0.07.02] > http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/downloads/java.shtml > > I've tested the "IcedTea OpenJDK" ex OpenSuSE 11-3 > [java-1_6_0-openjdk - Java runtime environment based on OpenJDK 6 > and IcedTea 6 ] on 32 bit i386. > All applets should compile "cleanly". > However the IcedTea plugin for Firefox is not yet up to standard SUN > plugin quality !! and will -on SuSE 11.3 linux- not be very usefull. > E.g. the enduser must use Sun's plugin inorder to work with the > Openjava compiled applets... I am pretty confident in the code's ability to be compiled with openjdk. The end users may use their preferred java plugin as it does not interact with the licensing of your source code. Best regards, Georges. -- Georges KHAZNADAR et Jocelyne FOURNIER 22 rue des mouettes, 59240 Dunkerque France. Téléphone +33 (0)3 28 29 17 70
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