[Savannah-hackers] savannah.gnu.org: submission of open java extensions

[nferrier]

A package was submitted to savannah.gnu.org.
This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden

If it already is an official GNU package, it will be approved shortly.
Otherwise it must be discussed on address@hidden for approval. 

Nic Ferrier <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: other
Other License: Both GPL and LGPL will be used for this project. Where possible 
we will make the implementation code GPLed, but the API code will be LGPLed.

This is important because it will allow organisations like the Apache Software 
Federation to use the APIs but to accept the GPL for implementation dependant 
code.
Package: open java extensions
Unix name: oje

The OJE (Open Java Extensions) project develops (L)GPLed versions of Sun\'s 
java extensions.

Sun has a 2 levels of Java code. The java library is \"core java\" and is 
(roughly) what is delivered with Sun\'s Java platform download. This is also 
what the Classpath project is developing a free version of.

The second layer is the javax layer. This includes many different, unrelated 
libraries. Sun group some of these libraries into an Enterprise Java product 
but that\'s a marketing distinction rather than a technical one.

For example, one library is the javamail library. This is distributed under the 
name javax.mail. and is an abstract API for representing internet (and other) 
mail. Along with the javamail API Sun distribute some implementations of the 
API that are based on SMTP, POP and IMAP respectively.

The OJE project is in the business of developing free versions of as many of 
these libraries as possible.

The project was started at sourceforge by Andrew Selkirk (address@hidden) but 
Andrew has burned himself out a bit and has asked me (a contributor to the 
project) if I would be willing to suggest to GNU that it become part of this 
project.

The existing OJE project contains finished, or near finished implementations of:

- JAXP
- Javamail
- activation
- infobus

You may ask: why should this not be in the Classpath project? Here\'s some 
reasons why not:
- the amount of code in the OJE could easily double the size of the Classpath 
project

- Classpath requires copyright assignment and that might not be appropriate for 
OJE

- the projects are functionally seperate

- a seperation is not problematic because subversions can be used to tie the 
two CVS trees together if necessary

The API deliverables of the project will be LGPL licenced. The implementation 
deliverables of the project will be GPL licenced as much as possible.