The Apache Software Foundation has accused Sun of breaking promises to the free and open software community over IP licensing condition it has applied to the JCK needed for the Apache Harmony project.
IN an open letter to Sun published on the ASF website, the foundation’s Java community process vice-president Geir Magnusson said the IP rights restrictions being put forward by Sun were “totally unacceptable”.
Harmony is the Apache open source implementation of Java Standard Edition 5.
“The JCK license Sun is offering imposes IP rights restrictions through limits on the ‘field of use’ available to users of our software,” Mr Magnusson said in the letter.
“These restrictions are contrary to the terms of the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA) – the governing rules of the JCP – to which Sun is contractually bound to comply as a signatory,” he said.
The ASF says Sun’s JCK license protects parts of Sun’s commercial Java business at the expense of ASF’s open software by preventing its users from using Apache software in certain fields of use.
“Such implicit or explicit threats of IP-based aggression give one actor overwhelming commercial advantages over the other participants in the ecosystem,” Mr Magnusson said.
Besides holding back Harmony development, Mr Magnusson said the Sun licensing restrictions threatened to harm the reputation of Java as an open technology, and to harm the “cooperative nature” of the relationship between the Apache foundation and Sun.
“The situation we are facing is grossly in conflict with the basic IP philosophy of the JCP, the concept of Java as an open standards-based ecosystem, Sun's public promises to the free and open source communities, and Sun's contractual obligations as a specification lead under the JSPA,” he said.
The open letter calls on Sun to offer an acceptable and JSPA-compliant license within 30 days.
Sun responded to the letter in a blog saying the company was “working with as many communities as possible to create an open source implementation of the Java platform under the GPL (GNU General Public License) v2 that mainstream open source communities can work with - this includes TCKs.”
“As you'll note from Apache's letter, this is a dispute over specific terms, not over Sun providing a TCK,” Sun said.
“Java technology has many stakeholders, and we recognise that we will not be able to please everyone as we move through this process.”
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