Re: [Classpathx-discuss] Commerical use of classpathx code

[Hugh Greene]

Sadly all this is now moot as my boss chivvied me along to just do 
something slightly more awkwardly, with SAX, but I thought I'd reply to let 
you know a bit more about the issues from my point of view.


At 00:33 2001-08-22 +0100, Nic Ferrier wrote:
> > For a definitive, final answer, you might want to wait for the project
> > lead to ring in. Any comments, Nic?
>
> I will be clairifying the position with classpathx as soon as all the
> classpathx developers are happy to gpl+excep their code ...
>
> The position with Dave's JAXP stuff, as I understand it, is that it IS
> GPL+exceptioned ...

Well, for now the comments in those files in CVS (as seen from your 
webpage) say "GPL", so I have to take it as such.


> My understanding of changes is that you have to textually change
> something before you get the GPL virus.

Nope, I just have to "link with" it:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL

I'm sure Java's class loading counts as "linking with" the loaded classes 
so, unless your code is LGPL'ed or GLP+ex'ed, nobody can use it in a 
commercial program, if they intend to distribute that program.  It's 
possible for someone to write some in-house software and, because they're 
not distributing it, not have any problem with the GPL; but I'm not certain 
that applies to my situation, so I can't do that.


> I would ask you not to [remove bits] if you can avoid it though ...

I didn't necessarily want to remove bits, really, I just wasn't sure where 
the boundaries were, and what minimal set of code I'd need to get working 
the bit I wanted.


> Hope that answers your questions, I am struggling with a change of
> site (and of mailing system) so I'm not as communicative as I normally
> might be... rest assured that if you ask stuff here I will
> (eventually) get round to answering it.

Thanks to you all for your answers.  ClasspathX looks like useful stuff so 
I hope it gets a licence which allows commercial use :-)  But if not, I may 
yet end up using it in spare-time, free-software projects ...

Cheers,
Hugh