NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
(Via http://wmf.editthispage.com/2005/07/25)
Elliotte Rusty Harold: I've heard Sun claim that Netbeans is open source, but that doesn't seem to be true. Among other things the license states, "You may not create, modify, or change the behavior of, or authorize your licensees to create, modify, or change the behavior of, classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are in any way identified as 'java', 'javax', 'sun' or similar convention as specified by Sun in any naming convention designation." and I "agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software." Has anyone published a version of NetBeans that is open source. or is Sun just flat out lying about this?
Before you jump up and claim "this is utter nonsense," (which was what I was about to do when I first saw the post), do yourself and everyone else a favor—go to your NetBeans installation directory and read the file named LICENSE.html.
My copy did contain passages cited in Elliotte's post. And my copy is one downloaded from netbeans.org, not the bundled version from java.sin.com.
That is not correct
That is not correct
Tim Boudreau wrote:
> I agree, the way the download page is set up, it *looks* as if all of NetBeans
> is licensed under this binary code license. That's probably not how it should
> be, so we'll work on fixing that ASAP.
Thanks for the quick response.
I have uninstalled NetBeans from all of my computers. I'll reinstall them when the license is changed to an Open Source license.
Re: NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
Re: NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
I have no problem whatsoever with non-Open Source software. (I happily paid for my IDEA license.)
What I have a problem with is NetBeans.org say one thing (that NetBeans is Open Source) and do another (distribute NetBeans binaries with a non-Open Source license), which Tim (I assume representing NetBeans.org) acknowledged as being a problem.
Re: NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
Please note that portions of Software may be provided with notices and open source licenses from such communities and third parties that govern the use of those portions, and any licenses granted hereunder do not alter any rights and obligations you may have under such open source licenses, however, the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provisions in this Agreement will apply to all Software in this distribution.
In other words, any part of the distribution that is under an open source license (such as, all of the sources for NetBeans), is covered by that open source license, and the click-through agreement does not in any way alter the rights granted by that open source license.
BTW, the indemnification part, which was mentioned elsewhere, is for cases where you redistribute NetBeans, not use NetBeans.
I don't blame anyone for misinterpreting the legalese here - I had to have it explained to me.
Re: NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
My confusion (and question) is this: Of the
netbeans-4_1-windows.exe (46.43 MB)
MD5: fc9e7b76427ebc69e7d060b2ce7eed75
download, are there portions that are not covered by an Open Source license?
I assume the answer is affirmative. But I couldn't infer that from the license page.
There are other downloads from the NetBeans.org download page (the AS Bundle and the Mobility Pack) whose licenses are almost identical to the netbeans-4_1-windows.exe download. Yet my understanding is that they are not completely Open Source.
Re: NetBeans Is Not Open Source!
Thanks for raising this issue - it helped to get this fixed. Let me know if anything still seems less than open source.
-Tim