Michael J Knox wrote:
Ok, so even if they address the redistribution of it (so it can be installed with other java VM implementations), its still *not* OSS.
No, it's a work in progress. A point which you seem to consistently be missing in your efforts to bring negativity to this thread. Free redistribution is one of the four freedoms and having it is definitely better than not having any of the freedoms at all. Yes, the other three components to make Java truly Free and Open are still missing, but Sun has given a commitment to change that and they've proven themselves to be honourable in living up to these commitments in the past (OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, for example).
As stated before, this is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Sun is conning people/distributions into thinking its OK to ship a close source JVM, because the license allows it to be freely redistributed.
Sun is not conning anyone. It's well understood the the DLJ license is the first step on a path that Sun intends to end with Java being released under an OSI complaint license. You would have to have your head in the sand to have missed this piece of news. Debian hasn't portrayed Java as free software. It's very clearly in the "non-free" section of the distribution and there has been robust debate on the lists to justify this. If you want to persist with your assertion that people are being conned I'd like to ask you to provide some evidence to back up that point. I've personally found your attitude on this thread to be very negative and unhelpful. The open source community thrives due to credit and recognition. You seem to be doing your best to outweigh this by spreading distrust and malice towards Sun when they're doing their best to engage constructively with the community. In my opinion Sun deserves to be congratulated for the efforts they have made to contribute and as a community we should be supporting and encouraging their efforts to fully Open Source Java. Cheers -- Matt Brown matt(a)mattb.net.nz Mob +64 21 611 544 www.mattb.net.nz