Need Advice to see if we can ship OpenJDK/JRE with Commercial App

[Dan Tran]

Hi

What kind of obligation do we need? ( like expose our source code
since OpenJDK is GNU ? )

Big Thanks

-Dan

[Dan Tran]

We also got advice from our council to scan the source files under
openjdk 7 source directory for NONE GPLv2 with "Classpath" exception
[1] . We found about 1000 files, all of those files fall under the
following categories: demo, sample, test, NONE GPL file ( ie has
apache2 or other friendly license ).

Since those files do not apply to us, I guess we can ship OpenJDK
without exposing our source code under GPLv2 license.

How about others? How do you approach this issue?

Since I found so little discussion about ability to ship OpenJDK with
a commercial app ( instead of Oracle JRE, and not paying for license
fee ), it sounds like OpenJDK 7 is NOT ready for prime time yet?

Thanks

-Dan

[1] http://openjdk.java.net/legal/gplv2+ce.html

[Henri Gomez]

> Since I found so little discussion about ability to ship OpenJDK with
> a commercial app ( instead of Oracle JRE, and not paying for license
> fee ), it sounds like OpenJDK 7 is NOT ready for prime time yet?

What do you means by 'not ready for prime time yet' ?

[Dan Tran]

ie, little interests on commercial company willing to ship openjdk
with their app and but ship with Oracle JRE and pay for license fee.

-D

[Ben Evans]

Hi Dan,

Your mails are quite hard to understand (and I'm guessing English
isn't your first language).

Could you try explaining again exactly what you want to do and why you
want to bundle a JRE or JDK with your app?

Are you making modifications to OpenJDK? Or is your application just a
Java-based app and you want to ship a JRE for convenience?

Thanks,

Ben

[Dan Tran]

Sorry about the confusion I've made.

Basically, I would like to ship OpenJDK's JRE with my App, instead of
Oracle's JRE which requires a license/support fee.

Shipping OpenJDK with our app is purely for the convenient to our
customer. There is no reason for us to modify OpenJDK

However, according to OpenJDK license which is GPLv2 with "Classpath"
Exception. So my guess is we can ship OpenJDK with our app without
the obligation of open up our source code.

However, to be very sure, I would like to ping this forum to see if
I miss any thing, and also to find out if any one are on the same
route

Thanks

-Dan

[Ben Evans]

First of all, IANAL.

Having said that, if you aren't modifying the OpenJDK then all you are
doing is bundling a piece of unmodified GPL software into the same
delivery mechanism as your proprietary application. Which should be
fine - just include the GPL, a README which explains where to get the
source for OpenJDK from, and don't claim that OpenJDK is your work, or
anything to do with you.

So you *can* do this. The question really is - *should* you do this.
And there are very good reasons for not bundling a platform along with
an application. I'm sure other people will chime in with other very
good reasons why not to do this, but:

Field Support Overhead. This is a huge one. You can't possibly test
your app+JRE bundle on every conceivable machine configuration that
your customers will have. Yet, by shipping a combined app+JRE, you
have made your company responsible for support of that combined bundle
in the eyes of your customers. The costs of servicing support requests
from your customers will increase enormously if you are shipping a
private JRE along with the app. If Windows is one of the platforms you
need to support, then this problem becomes an absolute nightmare,
especially if your customers are remote (and even worse if your
customers are essentially corporate desktop users).

If you're absolutely set on going this route, take a look at the
profit model for your app, and the support cost model. Work out how
many additional support cases it would take before your profit margin
is eaten up. If that number isn't very, very large, then don't do
this.

Thanks,

Ben

[Henri Gomez]

2011/10/7 Dan Tran <dan...@gmail.com>:

> Sorry about the confusion I've made.
>
> Basically, I would like to ship OpenJDK's JRE with my App, instead of
> Oracle's JRE which requires a license/support fee.
>
> Shipping OpenJDK with our app is purely for the convenient to our
> customer.  There is no reason for us to modify OpenJDK
>
> However, according to OpenJDK license which is GPLv2 with "Classpath"
> Exception.  So my guess is we can ship OpenJDK with our app without
> the obligation of open up our source code.
>
> However, to be very sure, I  would like to ping this forum to see if
> I miss any thing, and also to find out if any one are on the same
> route
>

Dan, when you told about embedding OpenJDK (may be only JRE part), do
you think at Mac OS/X apps for AppStore ?

[Geir Magnusson Jr.]

have you read the GPL recently?

geir

[Ben Evans]

Hi Geir,

Well, we don't know what Dan's precise use case is (and yes the details do
matter here) but I have many examples of software delivery media which
contained both unmodified GPL binaries and proprietary software binaries.

Are you claiming that this delivery mode is essentially infringing? I'd like
to hear your reasoning for claiming that - I don't think I've heard that
reading before.

Thanks,

Ben

[Geir Magnusson Jr.]

I think I read too quickly and I think you're right as long as the bundling is a distribution convenience rather than some kind of "combined" work (modified or unmodified...)

geir

[Dan Tran]

here is my precise use case:

- InstallAnywhere with embed JRE to deploy a Tomcat application +
JRE + my webapp into a customer server ( linux, windows)

-Dan

[Dan Tran]

Thanks for the clarification about the possibility of shipping
OpenJDK's JRE with our project.

Oracle JRE ( 1.6) has been very good for us, so far we have no major
concern from support perspective.

So we hope OpenJDK 1.7 has the same level of quality. It is up to our
QA to bless this route

Thanks

-D

[Georges Saab]

Hi Dan --

While I certainly don't want to discourage you from looking at OpenJDK, it sounds to me like you are
looking at it because you think the OracleJDK is expensive for support and license for redistribution?

If so (and you have not already done so) I would suggest that you check the OracleJDK BCL on the
free ('gratis') version, which has clauses explaining the rights for redistribution.

Have a look here for more info.

/GES

[Fernando Cassia]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 16:44, Georges Saab <george...@oracle.com> wrote:
>  Have a look here for more info.
>
>   /GES

I see a white space :)

FC

[Georges Saab]

Have a look here [1] for more info.

[1] http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/index.html

:)

[Dan Tran]

Dont think we can ship Oracle JRE with this statement below

"2. LICENSE TO USE. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
Agreement including, but not limited to, the Java Technology
Restrictions of the Supplemental License Terms, Oracle grants you a
non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without license fees
to reproduce and use internally the Software complete and unmodified
for the sole purpose of running Programs. THE LICENSE SET FORTH IN
THIS SECTION 2 DOES NOT EXTEND TO THE COMMERCIAL FEATURES. YOUR RIGHTS
AND OBLIGATIONS RELATED TO THE COMMERCIAL FEATURES ARE AS SET FORTH IN
THE SUPPLEMENTAL TERMS ALONG WITH ADDITIONAL LICENSES FOR DEVELOPERS
AND PUBLISHERS."

-Dan

[Georges Saab]

Dan --

This FAQ [1] may help make things clearer for you.

/GES

[1] http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/oracle-javase-faq-398492.pdf

[Dan Tran]

ah, base on the FAQ, we can ship Oracle JRE with standalone software
app ( customer will need to perform installation ),

However If the software is embedded in an appliance and ship together
to customer, a fee is required

Thanks

-Dan

[Donald Smith]

Just to be clear - indeed - you should definitely consult with a lawyer
as no one could ever offer appropriate legal advice over email, let
alone a mailing list, but there are definitely many scenarios where
redistribution is free.

- Don

[Clemens Eisserer]

Hi,

Does bundling oracle's jre really require a license?

Thanks, Clemens

2011/10/8 Donald Smith <donald...@oracle.com>:

[Dalibor Topic]

On 10/21/11 11:02 AM, Clemens Eisserer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Does bundling oracle's jre really require a license?

You can find the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for the Java SE
Platform Products and JavaFX here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/index.html.

Oracle Java licensing and distribution FAQs are available at
http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/java-licensing-faqs-412039.pdf.

In addition, Georges also provided a link in this thread to the FAQs for
Oracle Java SE Support, Oracle Java SE Advanced, and Oracle Java SE Suite,
available here:
http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/oracle-javase-faq-398492.pdf

cheers,
dalibor topic

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[Dan Tran]

If someone can point me to a prebuild of openjdk 1.7 for CentOS/Redhad
5.5+, it is very much appreciated. So far I only found discussion for
Ferora, ubuntu, etc

Thanks

-D

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes
<ahu...@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 12:44 Fri 07 Oct     , Georges Saab wrote:
>> Hi Dan --
>>
>>    While I certainly don't want to discourage you from looking at OpenJDK, it sounds to me like you are
>> looking at it because you think the OracleJDK is expensive for support and license for redistribution?
>>
>>     If so (and you have not already done so) I would suggest that you check the OracleJDK BCL on the
>> free ('gratis') version, which has clauses explaining the rights for redistribution.
>>
>>     Have a look here for more info.
>>
>

> Can you point to others who are distributing Oracle's proprietary binaries under the BCL?
> This was made possible by the DLJ but that's been retired: http://robilad.livejournal.com/90792.html
>
> In the case of OpenJDK, lots of GNU/Linux distributions are already shipping binaries so
> Dan would be in good company there.  Not to mention that anyone can support OpenJDK as
> it's Free Software, whereas support for Oracle's binaries is restricted to Oracle only.
>
>>    /GES
>>
>>
>
> --
> Andrew :)
>
> Free Java Software Engineer
> Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)
>
> Support Free Java!
> Contribute to GNU Classpath and IcedTea
> http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath
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> PGP Key: 248BDC07 (https://keys.indymedia.org/)
> Fingerprint = EC5A 1F5E C0AD 1D15 8F1F  8F91 3B96 A578 248B DC07
>

[Henri Gomez]

> If someone can point me to a prebuild of openjdk 1.7 for CentOS/Redhad
> 5.5+, it is very much appreciated. So far I only found discussion for
> Ferora, ubuntu, etc

You couldn't use Fedora RPM on CentOS/RHEL 5.5 ?

[Dan Tran]

Since openjdk1.7 for Fedora is built against latest toolchain/lib, I
would assume it is unsafe to use against CentOS. I can give it try.

If any one already experience with similar setup please share.

-D

[Dan Tran]

I am extremely thankful for this redhat 5.5/openjdk 1.7 work. looking
forward to see it happen.

Thanks again

-Dan

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Dr Andrew John Hughes
<ahu...@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 20:38 Wed 26 Oct     , Dan Tran wrote:
>> If someone can point me to a prebuild of openjdk 1.7 for CentOS/Redhad
>> 5.5+, it is very much appreciated. So far I only found discussion for
>> Ferora, ubuntu, etc
>>
>

> Although 7 is in Gentoo and going into F16 (and probably the latest Ubuntu too),
> it won't appear in RHEL until there is at least a TCK available, as there is for 6.
>
> I also believe you'll have problems on RHEL/CentOS 5.x (see posts on
> distro-...@openjdk.java.net) due to the age of some of the
> dependencies.  NIO relies on some newer system calls and libraries
> than are provided by RHEL 5.  For instance, there have been issues with
> building against glib.
>
> I'll try and have a look myself at getting RHEL5 + IcedTea 2.0 (which
> uses OpenJDK 7) working soon, but my RHEL5 box is pretty slow.  If I do,
> I could post the binaries somewhere.
>
>> Thanks
>>
>> -D