Debian DPL Threatens to Leave SPI Over Sun Java

An anonymous reader writes "A three-week-long flame war in debian-devel over the new Java Distribution License has culminated in Anthony Towns, the newly elected Debian Project Lead, offering to separate Debian from its legal representative, SPI. This came as a response to SPI member John Goerzen's objections to the Debian project's interaction with Sun's legal team around the new JDL license without review from SPI's lawyers."

Comments

Debian is violating Sun's licensing is the issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the problems:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 70245

The US places export restrictions on certain types of software (mostly encryption related stuff), which Sun has reflected in it's license. Since Debian can't/won't control which country has access to US-based mirrors then that means that they can't fuffill the obligation to screen out illegal downloads from certain countries and such. According to this license the work around Debian has used in the past is to have non-US for exported restricted software. Which is basicly you can only have the software on non-US based mirrors.

Debian has gotten rid of non-US for Sarge due to the relaxation of export controls by the U.S. government. But it would still violate Sun's licensing.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 70295

This is Sun's obnoxiousness showing with this one:
""" (c) you do not combine, configure or distribute the Software to
        run in conjunction with any additional software that implements
        the same or similar functionality or APIs as the Software;"""

The bug author mentions the Java version of Python, but basicly it would make things like a distro shipping GCJ and Sun's java would be a licensing violation.

Obviously (in My eyes) Sun chooses this for two reasons:
A. To keep it's java runtime pure and functional. Avoids bug-inducing conflicts.
B. Help kill off Free software java implimentation.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3 70296

In Sun's License states that you can't modify any sort of copyright notices and whatnot. But by splitting the package up like Debian does they can't avoid modifying this stuff. Thusly Debian is violating Sun's distribution license.

Debian can ship non-free stuff in non-free obviously according to their bylaws.. but Debian doesn't have the authority to break OTHER people's licenses.

Sun says that this is OK and it's legal mumbo jumbo they can ignore. Debian's lawyer are basicly saying we can't violate Sun's licenses... ESPECIALLY without a discussion and you should pull the package from non-free until Sun fixes it's licensing so that Debian can use it legally.

This has happenned before with other software. Sun's license is shit and should be avoided by any sort of sane Linux distribution.

Re:A lot of nerve

[joostje]

I guess I'm not a target user of their system since I just want Java to work on my system without being strip searched and violated.

The discussion here is about including non-free software in the non-free archive. This is done on a regular basis by the Debian ftp-masters team, and each time they themselves read the lisence, judge it, and decide whether it can be allowed into the non-free archive.

So the adding of the java packages to non-free looked just like a routine job, that ftp-masters handed the way they do with all non-free software. This time they even took more precausions, and asked the sun team if inclusion in the debian non-free archive was OK. And it seems that that is when the discussions on debian-flamware started.

Re:So basically...

[joostje]

the new debian project leader acepts a legal arangement with Sun

From my reading of the thread, the project leader accepted a legal argument from sun, when sun confirmed it's OK to distribute java. The project leader (or ftp-masters) then went on to add java to the non-free archive, without consulting SPI. This is BTW the same as ftp-masters does with other non-free packages (they themselves deside whether to include them in non-free or not). Usually debian doesn't really care very mutch what goes into non-free, as that isn't an official part of debian anyway.

Re:A lot of nerve

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

ftp-masters handed the way they do with all non-free software.

Excuse me? I'm not Debian expert but as far as I know the normal process for new packages is to issue an ITP (intent-to-package) stating among other things the license of the package and send a copy to debian-devel -- this is all documented in the developers-reference. New licenses are typically sent to debian-legal for review.

None of that happened this time. There may be good reasons for that, but stating that this case was handed just like any other sounds like a lie to me... but, like I said I'm not an expert, please enlighten me.

That's the error of this argument.

[hummassa]

SPI is Debian, not the "legal representative". Debian, as a legal entity, Does Not Exist. When aj and the ftpmasters initiated distribution of the JDK, SPI was being contracted to the indemnification clause. If there is something to indemnify, SPI will have to shell out the dollars -- or sell out Debian's server farms, domain names and other assets, including copyrights and trademarks: all assets are SPI's, not Debian's.
That's the beauty of aj's bluff: hell yeah, Debian can detach itself from SPI (after some constitution change) but, oh, it cannot be called Debian anymore (the trademark belongs to SPI), nor use the twirl mark (ah-ha), huh, and it cannot use SPI's servers and other equipment either. This would amount to the separatist cabal being exiled from Debian, really.

Not nerve, naivite

[hey!]

I think the other point of view is that Debian isn't a legal entity, it's just a bunch of cooperating people, and SPI exists to handle some formalities like owning servers and whatnot.

There seems to be an assumption that being amorphous, legally speaking, is some kind of shield. It's not. It's an invitation to drop the shit-bomb and cover everybody in sight. The way this works is that when the legal successors to Sun in owneship of Java (see below) have a legal hissy fit, their lawyers sue everybody in sight. The the judge dismisses the suits against every tom dick and harry and makes them go after the legal entity, unless somebody has made a very bad mistake. That's why corporations exist. They're the equivalent of legal fortesses for the individuals in an enterprise.

What should happen then is if SPI wins, great, if it loses, the individuals can continue on under a new corporation because of the open source licenses. The problem is that this is very close to legal chicanery. You're not supposed to protect yourself with legal fictions. Thus for the protection to work, people have to cooperate -- which sometimes means not doing what they want right away. If they don't then they expose everybody directly involved with the project, and everybody transitively involved for good measure. That's what lawyers do when they're looking to make money for their clients: they throw shit on everything and see what is allowed to stick. Even if it doesn't stick, it's an unpleasant experience.

Success in any enterprise depends on predicting the future, which is a dicey proposition at best. The main reason you need to consult lawyers is to avoid what other people's lawyers will do to you if your prediction turns out false.

In this case, take Sun. They are not doing so well as a business for the last several years. They're losing money. Let's hope they'll turn it around. But one thing that happens if this keeps going is that the stockholders decide they'd better cash out; the large stockholders can't do this because they own too much. So they start looking at selling the whole company, or liquidating its assets to turn them into cash. Java is currently the property of Sun. Next year it could be the legal property of another company, and one thing that company buys is the right to sue over uses of that property.

Now imagine a company that has a lot of cash that would have a strategic interest in gaining a hold over Java licensees. It's not hard. Imagine what they could do with their power to sue licensees and copyright infringers, not just for the immediate cash value but for the strategic value. Are they going to be reaonable and just go after the ftp maintainers?

I've been through this kind of thing before. Without consulting me, my business associate, who had a majority interest, entered into a casual legal relationship with an outside party. The arrangment seems reasonable and we're all reasonable likable folks. Then the outside party got into some trouble of his own not related to us at all. Suddenly he becomes less reasonable and likable. Next thing his lawyers were suing everybody in sight. We are getting hit with lawsuits from people we have no relationship with, who are really going after him, but since their lawyer's already working on the case the marginal cost of a second third and fourth lawsuit is nil. At that point I was very glad to have a corporation between me and them to take the liability.