Slackware has a JVM [LWN.net]

Slackware has a JVM

Posted Mar 25, 2004 14:37 UTC (Thu) by tomd (subscriber, #881)
In reply to: Slackware has a JVM by remijnj
Parent article: GNOME Platform Stormclouds

This is interesting. I understood that there were licensing issues redistributing the Sun JDK, ie you can't except with explicit approval from Sun. That's certainly what the blackdown FAQ says:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/docs/support/faq-release/FAQ-java-linux-8.html#licensing

While vendors can certainly ask Sun for permission, since I hadn't seen any free (meaning mirrored, in this case) distros carrying it, I believed that Sun wouldn't let unrestrained distribution take place in that way. Perhaps they decided that Slackware distribution included mirrors, but people couldn't redistribute the JDK separately? Hmm.

(Log in to post comments)

Slackware has a JVM

Posted Mar 25, 2004 15:56 UTC (Thu) by busterb (subscriber, #560) [Link]

Slackware carries a pre-packaged version of Sun Java on its mirrors, and has done so for several years. This comes from the Changelog for Slackware 8.0:

Mon Apr 2 15:30:09 PDT 2001
contrib/java/: Added Java(TM) 2 SDK, Standard Edition,
Version 1.3.0_02. Thanks to Sun Microsystems for
allowing us to include this with Slackware.

Prior to that, Slackware distributed the Blackdown JDK. I'm not sure what Patrick Volkerding did to get distribution rights, but there apparently has not been any issue getting the Sun version of Java included in the freely-downloadble version and even repackaged as a Slackware tarball.

Slackware has a JVM

Posted Mar 25, 2004 17:31 UTC (Thu) by remijnj (subscriber, #5838) [Link]

Yes, i see now. Thank god for Slackware and Patrick Volkerding, a bit of sanity in the world of linux distros.

Just to clarify though, the jvm is now in the normal install (not confined to contrib anymore). It resides in the "d" (development) set.