Re: sun.security package

David Brownell -- JavaSoft (David.Brownell@Eng)
Fri, 11 Apr 1997 16:04:30 -0700

Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 16:04:30 -0700
From: David.Brownell@Eng (David Brownell -- JavaSoft)
Message-Id: <199704112304.QAA07019@argon.eng.sun.com>
To: jmoreh@openhorizon.com
Subject: Re: sun.security package

> Thank you very much for your prompt reply; I really apprciate it. My
> understanding was that sun.security.* (except for sun.security.provider) is
> not part of JDK, and that a Java licensee (e.g. Microsoft or Netscape) is
> not bound to include these on their platform.

This software is definitely part of "the JDK", which is a source
product that you can divide into two parts:

(1) "java.*" APIs which licensees are bound to support
(the license agreements give details);

(2) "sun.*" APIs which are used for a variety of purposes,
including implementing some of those "java.*" APIs,
but which licensees are _not_ bound to support,
and which might not be there in future JDK releases.

Some people -- including unfortunately some at Sun -- mistakely talk
about "the JDK" as if all of it must be supported by licensees. This
is not accurate; hence the confusion!

> That is the impetus for us
> wanting to redistribute them to our clients. So, the question really is
> this: can we in fact redistributed these classes with our software to our
> customers. We, like many others have downloaded JDK and adhere to its
> licensing agreement. But we do not have any special agreements with Javasoft
> or Sun.

I would certainly expect that the licensing agreement says what the
story there is. There are both source and binary licenses, which read
differentl. I do know that other vendors have included made some of
those "sun.*" classes available, and used them (despite the fact that
Sun doesn't provide real support for them).

My point is that because these classes are in the JDK (category 2 above!)
you need to look at JDK licensing terms (source, binary) to see what the
story there is.

- Dave

> Thank you again,
> Jahan
>
> At 02:13 PM 4-11-97 -0700, David Brownell -- JavaSoft wrote:
> >All of those classes are included in the JDK licence ...
> >
> >- Dave
> >
> >
> >> From jmoreh@openhorizon.com Fri Apr 11 14:08:23 1997
> >> Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:09:13 -0700
> >> From: Jahan Moreh <jmoreh@openhorizon.com>
> >> To: java-security@web2.javasoft.com
> >> CC: jmoreh@openhorizon.com
> >> Subject: sun.security package
> >>
> >> Could you please guide us as to who we need to contact in order to
> >> license sun.security.* packages. We'd like to use Sun's implementation
> >> of the Acl, Permission, Groups, AclEntry, and Principal interfaces and
> >> distribute these with our product. Any help is greatly appreciated.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Jahan Moreh
> >> Open Horizon, Inc.
> >>
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------
> Jahan Moreh
> Senior Product Manager, Enterprise Security
> Open Horizon, Inc.
> tel: 310 476 3767
> fax: 310 476 7189
> email: jmoreh@openhorizon.com
>
> For additional information about Open Horizon
> please send email to info@openhorizon.com or
> visit our web site at http://www.openhorizon.com
>
>