testing kit conformance as a condition of distribution

[Brian Behlendorf]

Thank you to everyone who responded on this topic.  I used many of these 
thoughts in my panel appearance at JavaOne on Thursday morning; I can't 
find a video or transcript online anywhere yet, if I do I'll post it. 
8 people and 30 minutes meant the usual limits of getting to say what's on
one's mind.  I wanted to go into some specifics of situations that were
causing grief, but felt it was better to get the higher-level messages
across.  My main points:

- This is not about people asking Sun to give away any of their own IP;
this is about asking Sun to let us give away our own works under the 
copyright licenses we need to be effective.

- Compatibility and open source licensing are not at odds with each other;
the open source community can address compatibility, and usually sees
compatibility issues as defects to be fixed rather than contractual
violations to be litigated.

- Use trademark law as the tool to enforce compliance, not copyright.
Allow people to create non-conformant derivative works, so long as they
aren't claiming conformance.  Creating derivative works is a part of the
every day process of open source projects, and you can't TCK-test
everything.

- There is significant tension in the open source community between those
who want to "work within the system", and others who are pushing ahead
with de facto standards, or leaving Java altogether.

- As 'open' as Java is compared to, say, Microsoft windows, we still have
extremely closed attitudes and licenses around TCKs, RI's, expert groups,
and more.  TCKs in *particular* should be open to inspection by all, it's
where peer review matters most.

In retrospect I was a wuss and could have said a few things, given some
specific examples, that I didn't.  I also suspected some Astroturfing 
given the wild applause anytime the "we can't sacrifice compatibility!" 
meme was said.  But, one less brick in the wall, I hope.

 	Brian
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3