Thursday, February 24, 2005

Sun revokes Java license for FreeBSD

Though I read this late, I am a bit concerned with the news.

 

The open source FreeBSD project has had its licence to view the Java source code revoked by Sun, according to the FreeBSD Foundation's latest newsletter.

The newsletter, published two weeks ago, said Sun had terminated the FreeBSD's Sun Community Source License (SCSL), the licence which controls access to the Java source code. FreeBSD is worried that this may mean it can no longer release binary distributions of the Java runtime environment with the FreeBSD platform.

"The latest blow to our efforts [to port Java to FreeBSD] was the recent notification of Sun's desire to revoke and renegotiate the FreeBSD Foundation's SCSL licence," said the newsletter.

"Even after receiving notice of the termination of our licence, attempts to contact Sun to renegotiate the licence have gone unanswered. For now, it is safe to assume that the Foundation will engage in another lengthy, and potentially costly, licensing negotiation before our binary distributions can continue."

Sun and FreeBSD were unable to immediately respond to requests for comment, but according to sources close to the issue the situation was a misunderstanding and is likely to be resolved soon.

 

Source: http://freebsdaddicts.org/

 

This comes at a time, when I am thinking about a FreeBSD machine. I would be happy if it gets resolved soon. I would be going (soon) for either a cheaper machine or my machine back home.

3 comments:

  1. try with any dirty linux distro and Java rpms should be available for you to work with. If you are particular about java source view, I dont know lemme know further details. Solaris was also ok. FreeBSD is thin, but not as feature rich as linux is. FreeBSD kernel with X fails on my machine completely. kernel needs patch to support it

    Dont know when Freak be ready to support such hacks :)

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  2. Thought of playing with a raw 'nix version before going into the Linux. No idea whether FreeBSD will work out. But what the heck, I shall give a try.

    BTW, which linux distro would you advice?

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  3. Yeah, definitely give a try. There is FreeBSD live CD available as well.
    Suggestion for a Good Linux.
    Fedora is a good one. Its solid and has good community around it. Mandrake,Debian are the few I have tried. GnuStep is like NeXtStep of Apple. and there is Gentoo drawing good reviews and ubuntu which is new. Knoppix is real good technology, but it uses KDE ( and I have got used and live GNOME)
    LFS live CDs were also good.Simple.
    Shall try to passon Freak as well :)

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