Re: Is it legal to backport code from JDK8 to JDK6?
On 3/30/2015 7:37 AM, Haddock wrote:
JDK8 has some new class LinkedTransferQueue which has much better performance than LinkedBlockingQueue. For various reasons I can't change to JDK8. So I would like to backport the JDK8 LinkedTransferQueue to JDK6. My question is whether there could be any legal problem with that or whether that is fine. I'm working on some open source application. So all code would be open and therefore the mater could become an issue.
"Go not to Usenet for legal advice, for it will say both `Yes'
and `No' -- and be wrong both ways." (Apologies to JRRT)
The source file, too, says both `Yes' and `No'. Right at the
top it says
ORACLE PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL. Use is subject to license terms.
.... which sounds pretty restrictive. But a little further down it says
Written by Doug Lea with assistance from members of JCP JSR-166
Expert Group and released to the public domain, as explained at
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
.... which suggests you can do whatever you like. The link is to a
"human-readable summary" of a detailed legal document; for myself,
the summary seems not to clarify the case much. It says that the
persons releasing the work to the public domain disclaim all their
rights in it, but that persons other than the releasers, if there
are any, retain all their rights, if they have any.
So: The source file both claims and disclaims proprietary rights,
and the Creative Commons page doesn't seem to resolve the matter.
However, I (never having practiced law, nor attended law school, nor
even taken the LSAT) am confident you'll have no trouble. I'm so
confident I'd bet your life on it.
--
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid
"Don't be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you." -- TLM