Re: [Gnome-print] Re: Gnome printing issues

[Nick Moffitt <nick valinux com>]

begin  George quotation:
> On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 12:46:22AM -0400, Mark VanderWiele/Austin/IBM wrote:
> > Chema:  I may have missed your point.   The IBM-Java-118-SDK is
> > downloadable without charge.   Yes, you are right you can not
> > redistribute it.   Are you saying you will not pre req a tool
> > which must be downloaded separately?
> 
> If a system is not really usable without a non-free (as in free
> speach, not free beer! I don't care about free of charge, the issue
> is freedom) package, the entire system becomes not free.

	This is indeed the case.  The Debian distribution would not be
able to include OMNI if it depended on a non-open-source package.  It
would most likely be stuck in the "contrib" section, which doesn't
work unless users deliberately edit their /etc/apt/ configuration
files.

> Is this tool truly neccessary?  (That is the SDK)  Could not a free
> alternative be used/written?  Alternatively, if IBM doesn't make
> money on this, what's the reason for not GPL or LGPLing it, thereby
> solving the problem.

	I'm not a Java expert, but it would strike me that the code
in OMNI is not likely to be bleeding-edge Java 2 with swing and other
GUI enhancements.  Rather, it is glue code.  It may run perfectly well
under kaffe.

	Another option is that IBM did release a wonderful Java
compiler (jikes) under a Free Software license.  It may be possible
to compile the relevant pieces into machine-native executables.

-- 
Nick Moffitt, Professional Services