[Kaffe] can the classpath project be used with Kaffe.

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Feb 10, 1999, Godmar Back <gback at cs.utah.edu> wrote:

> I can take pieces of classpath, add my own stuff and sell it as proprietary
> software without releasing the source code to the pieces I added?

Nope, you have to release the source code of the modified library, but 
not of the program that uses the library.

> I still don't see the difference:  everything that's added to both 
> classpath's and kaffe's libs would be contaminated (though RMS doesn't
> like that term) and the source to it would have to be released if someone
> wished to distribute it, for monetary reasons or not.

The difference between GPL and LGPL is that, for an LGPLed library,
its license does not require programs linked with it to be L?GPLed,
while GPL does.

> Both classpath and kaffe's libs can run proprietary Java
> applications without requiring their developers to release the
> source code.

It is possible to interpret the `linking' terms of the GPL in a sense
that disallows this.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~oliva  aoliva@{acm.org}
oliva@{dcc.unicamp.br,gnu.org,egcs.cygnus.com,samba.org}
Universidade Estadual de Campinas, SP, Brasil