Can Java code EVER be GPLd, at all?

[Angelo Schneider]

Arandir wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, David Starner wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 14, 1999 at 08:56:50PM -0800, Arandir wrote:
> > > > >But in the land of
> > > > > the Free, you are not free to write BSD applications that link to GPL libraries.
> > > > Right, providing we're talking the BSD license versus the XFree86 license.
> > >
> > > Wrong. The MIT (X) license does not give you the right to change the license.
> >
> > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
> > this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
> > the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
> > use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
> >                                                ^^^^^^^^^^
> > of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
> > so, subject to the following conditions:
> 
> I think you are misdefining "sublicense". To sublicense means to be able to

Sublicensing means under "a new or the same" license.

> pass the license on to someone else, similarly to subleasing or subletting.
> Normally, only the copyright holder has the right to license his work to

[..]

> But if you use any GPL code, then the entire package must be under the GPL.
> Thus, if you statically link a MIT application to a GPL library, you are
> required to distribute the whole under the GPL. But the MIT license does not
> allow this. (a dual MIT-GPL licensed package might be possible, however)

Exactly that does the MIT license alow and not the GPL!
The GPL forces you to license your additional stuff under GPL, too.
Whereas the
MIT license forces you to keep the MIT license for the oroginal stuff
and lets it
open to you how you license your additions.

> 
> This may sound like nitpicking (it probably is), but the big difference is that
> the former is GPL code derived from MIT code, but anything derived from GPL

Nope, the former is a package consisting out of GPL code and MIT code.
The package it self does not have any license at all. You can't license
(put your copyright
on) a simple working step of packaging (even if one of the parts of that
package is
a library which is used by the rest of the package).

> code must be licensed under the GPL.

It seem you see your contradiction but don't realize it:
"Everything derived from GPLed code must be licensed under GPL"
Everything derived from a MIT code must retain the MIT license for the
original part
but my have a different license for the derived part. Well, I would even
bet that you
are allowed to change the license for the original part, as long you
accept/keep
the conditions (sublicense).

> 
> --
> Arandir...
> _______________________________
> <http://www.meer.net/~arandir/>

BTW:
if every author of this email would put a different license for using,
reprodusing,
quoting and distributing on his sentences (visible at the stage of ">"
in this mail)
how fast would a discussion like this stop?

Regards,
	Angelo

P.S. well, I would allow to quote me under certain conditions below ....

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