Classpath code and licensing

Thu Jun 17 11:14:00 GMT 2004

Thanks for your eloquent (and informative) reply!
> Yes, you don't need to use the GPL+exception license when you
> redistribute, but can just drop the exception statement and distribute
> your derived work under the GPL. But as far as I know SWT itself, which
> you combine with your own code to create a larger work, the SwingSWT
> library, is distributed under the Common Public License, which is sadly
> not GPL-compatible. (This might be a good reason to contact the Eclipse
> board to ask them again to relicense SWT under something GPL-compatible,
> or dual license it under the CPL and GPL or something. Last time we
> asked they seemed positive about the idea, but didn't really seem to
> have time to work out all the issues.)

That is a shame.
Still, I have to wonder - who is going to complain? If I distribute and
say "My code is LGPL, and here's SWT (which is CPL) to save you mucking
about and downloading it", what's the legal position? I wouldn't have
thought anyone would sue me (but I guess you never can tell).
> Yeah, that would be silly. Make sure to mention explicitly what you are
> trying to do with SwingWT (providing a free software alternative for
> Swing that is usable now while our "pure" GNU Classpath one is still in
> the works) to licensing@gnu.org. They might be able to work out some
> solution to help out another Free Software project, with basically the
> same objective as GNU Classpath, since in general the current Classpath
> license is basically more permissive than the LGPL. 
> Feel free to forward this email to them (and/or CC me on your email) so
> they can tell where I might not be completely right in the above
> message.

Will do - many thanks for your help!
Cheers,
Rob
-- 
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Robin Rawson-Tetley
Animal Shelter Manager (http://sheltermanager.sf.net)
SwingWT (http://swingwt.sf.net)
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