Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee [LWN.net]

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 13, 2010 2:43 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876)
In reply to: Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee by rahulsundaram
Parent article: Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

This is not about trademarks, it is about patents. Any non-TCK validated implementation (including versions of OpenJDK that extend or omit elements of the spec) do not receive a patent license from Oracle. This is their position.

So, even OpenJDK is not "free software" in any way that I have come to understand it. I am not free to modify it.

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Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 13, 2010 6:22 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

I don't know if that's their position but I doubt it is since GPL license itself has a implicit patent license that is available regardless of whether it is TCK compliant or not. So if you use OpenJDK or a derived codebase then you get that. It is possible for you to modify software outside the boundaries of standard Java and get sued for unrelated patents but that can happen to any piece of software. Claiming that this makes it non-free is not logical since any software carries that risk.

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 13, 2010 8:57 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (1 responses)

I believe that you can "modify software outside the boundaries of standard Java" as you say and be sued for "related" patents.

The GPL gets it's power from copyright. This means the extent of the power of the GPL is to remove the right to distribute. That is it.

Who has the power to enforce the GPL in the case of OpenJDK? Only Oracle.

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

What does the GPL mean for Oracle if they sue a user of a GPL implementation of Java (even OpenJDK) for patent violation? Nothing.

Is Oracle going to restrict Oracle from distributing OpenJDK? No. So, what power does the GPL have over Oracle? None.

Now, OpenJDK "as released" has an explicit patent grant. However, modified versions of OpenJDK do not. In fact, if they "superset" the Java spec they explicitly do not have a grant.

Here is what an editorial on this very site had to say:

"Sun released much of the Java code under the GPL - eventually - but it never made Java truly free. The company went out of its way to retain control over the language and of any implementations of it; control over the specifications, copyright licensing policies forcing control over the code, and software patents held in reserve do not add up to a platform one can trust. Sun seemingly feared forks above all else, and so went out of its way to eliminate the freedom to fork whenever possible."

I agree with this excerpt. We do not have the freedom to fork OpenJDK.

I read a lot about the "implicit" patent grant in GPL2. I am not sure where this comes from but I imagine it is rooted in something like estoppel since it seems "reasonable" to assume you have the right to use software that was released under the GPL by the patent holder. I sometimes read that "Section 7" of the GPL gives the "implicit" patent license but my reading of that section just says that if Oracle sues you, you also lose the right to distribute Java.

You can read the text yourself here:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

As above, Oracle can still happily distribute under the GPL after they sue someone. They are not getting their rights from the GPL. It has no power over them.

All that said, I do not see how this "implicit" grant would overrule the "explicit" non-grant from Oracle anyway. You would not know until you went into court though so I admit anything is possible.

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 13, 2010 9:53 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

On the question of who has the power, Oracle is not the only copyright holder. Red Hat has been a significant contributor to OpenJDK and IBM has signed a deal with Oracle to be a contributor as well. If I get a piece of code from any author under the GPL license, all the terms stand and while the copyright holder can license the code under other licenses if they want to (assuming they retain copyright to all of the codebase atleast in a shared manner), they cannot take away the rights granted to me under the GPL retroactively and this included any patents rights as applicable to the codebase. Whether derivatives can infringe on additional patents is a entirely different question but whatever patents are applicable to standard Java specs, I have a license to use them regardless of the TCK and if I use OpenJDK without modifications, the TCK patent grant is applicable as well. If you don't share this perspective, we have a disagreement on what the implications of the license is and we will have the let the court sort it out when it happens. I am going to continue to consider OpenJDK as fully free software under the GPL license.