Maybe Sun Contributes to Open Source Community, but not much [LWN.net]

Maybe Sun Contributes to Open Source Community, but not much

Posted Jun 30, 2004 4:55 UTC (Wed) by hamjudo (subscriber, #363)
In reply to: Sun Contributes to Open Source Community by hingo
Parent article: Sun Contributes to Open Source Community

I wasted some time looking for licenses for projects listed in the press release.

I couldn't find the license or anything else for Project Looking Glass either. So that's neither open nor closed, it's plain, old fashioned vaporware. No points for open sourcing vaporware.
JDesktop Integration Components (JDIC) is distributed under the LGPL. So it is open source.
j3d-core is distributed under a couple licenses, the Java Distribution License, which is clearly closed, and the Java Research License. I am not a lawyer so I am not qualified to review the legal parts of either license. My unqualified first impression is that they are both unacceptable for actual use.
I must be reading something wrong, as section 2.3 of the JDL seems to say it can be unilaterally terminated on the 2nd or any following anniversary with 60 days notice. If you foolishly base your business on code covered by this license, Sun will be able to shut your business down in two years.

Hingo asked "So is this now real Open Source?"
I don't think so. I don't think it is good Closed Source either.

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Maybe Sun Contributes to Open Source Community, but not much

Posted Jun 30, 2004 12:14 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/ - Looking Glass core is released under GPL, "stable" version 0.5 is downloadable. Of course, without truly free Java it doesn't help much to have a GPL'd Java program - you can't run it on free software. The usual case of the "java trap".