Bugzilla Bug 172161

The gnu-classpath-inetlib, gnu-jaf and gnu-javamail packages are distrubuted
under the GPL with library exception. However, currently the packages in
Portage state 'GPL-2', which is incorrect.

gnu-jaf is actually LGPL-2.1
http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/activation/COPYING?rev=1.2&root=classpathx&view=markup

For gnu-classpath-inetlib and gnu-javamail I wasn't able to find any mention of
the exception inside the tarballs so I am not going to change the LICENSE
unless you can show me something that provess otherwise:

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/mail/COPYING?rev=1.2&root=classpathx&view=markup

I know that dev-java/gnu-classpath is under the exception but that does not
automatically make these things under it. Please reopen when you can point me
to more info about this.

I think the COPYING files are wrong.

On http://www.gnu.org/software/classpathx/ is written:
JavaBeans™ Activation Framework: GPL + library exception.
JavaMail: GPL + library exception. 

Further more, I scanned all java source files in the tarballs of the three
projects. Each java source file contains the the GPL license notice with this
exception:

"As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to
produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the
resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License."

, except these files in mail-1.0.tar.gz:

1. source/gnu/mail/providers/imap/IMAPTest.java, 
2. source/gnu/mail/providers/smtp/SMTPTransport.java, and
3. source/gnu/mail/handler/*.java,

(1) is without any license notice, (2) and (3) mention the LGPL.

I'm not a license expert, but I think the notice in the source files is of more
importance than the COPYING files.

Should I consider a bug report on gcc.gnu.org ?

(In reply to comment #3)
> I think the COPYING files are wrong.
> 
> On http://www.gnu.org/software/classpathx/ is written:
> JavaBeans™ Activation Framework: GPL + library exception.
> JavaMail: GPL + library exception. 
> 


> 
> Should I consider a bug report on gcc.gnu.org ?
> 

Yeah should file a bug about the gnu-jaf COPYING file. Don't know if upstream
is live any more though.

Ok. I changed the licenses of all of them. Thanks for reporting.

Chris Burdess (classpathx/inetlib) wrote:

All the ClasspathX packages used to be distributed under LGPL, and the original
authors retained copyright. However, we made a communal decision (in 2003 IIRC)
to change the licence to the GPL+library-linking exception favoured by the
Classpath project and GCJ. All committers were contacted and agreed to this,
except the original author of the SMTP provider who could not be located.
However, the SMTP provider has been substantially rewritten, most recently by
myself, to make use of the inetlib library for its core functionality, and in
this case we are agreed that it must be possible to change the licensing terms
for this one source file to match the licence of the entire package.