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Does Graal being an Oracle project make anyone else nervous? I mean from a software license or patent perspective. On the technical side there's much to like.

Does Graal being an Oracle project make anyone else nervous? I mean from a software license or patent perspective. On the technical side there's much to like. However I worry that once Graal becomes popular, Oracle will announce something that makes it risky to use without paying for a per-seat license or support package. I'm probably just showing my bias, but they have form in this area.

pmart123 7y ago
Probably. Larry Ellison always seems to find a way.
Twirrim 7y ago
It's an open source project. If Oracle does something disliked by the community, the community can fork and do whatever they like. This is something that has happened repeatedly with open source projects when the community has disliked the government of it, e.g. think Jenkins/Hudson situation. Or going way back Mambo/Joomla. Disclaimer: I work for Oracle, but nothing to do with Graal etc.
- eslaught 7y ago
  Looking at the license [1], it appears to be GPL v2 with a classpath exception. This means it doesn't directly deal with the issue of patents, only copyright. There have been cases in the past of companies going after users for patents on otherwise open source projects. The worst part is, Oracle reserves those right so they can decide retroactively to go after those users (unless Oracle decides to modify/replace the license). [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/master/LICENSE
  - repolfx 7y ago
    Actually large parts are under the Universal Permissive License these days, which explicitly deals with patent grants. e.g. https://github.com/graalvm/graaljs/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/graalvm/graaljs/blob/master/LICENSE https://opensource.org/licenses/UPL https://opensource.org/licenses/UPL I think Graal itself is GPL2+Classpath because it's derived from a codebase that was itself licensed that way, not because Oracle actually want ambiguity. If they wanted that, their new from-fresh codebases wouldn't be under a more precise open source license.

pmart123 7y ago

Probably. Larry Ellison always seems to find a way.

Twirrim 7y ago

It's an open source project. If Oracle does something disliked by the community, the community can fork and do whatever they like. This is something that has happened repeatedly with open source projects when the community has disliked the government of it, e.g. think Jenkins/Hudson situation. Or going way back Mambo/Joomla. Disclaimer: I work for Oracle, but nothing to do with Graal etc.

eslaught 7y ago
Looking at the license [1], it appears to be GPL v2 with a classpath exception. This means it doesn't directly deal with the issue of patents, only copyright. There have been cases in the past of companies going after users for patents on otherwise open source projects. The worst part is, Oracle reserves those right so they can decide retroactively to go after those users (unless Oracle decides to modify/replace the license). [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/master/LICENSE
- repolfx 7y ago
  Actually large parts are under the Universal Permissive License these days, which explicitly deals with patent grants. e.g. https://github.com/graalvm/graaljs/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/graalvm/graaljs/blob/master/LICENSE https://opensource.org/licenses/UPL https://opensource.org/licenses/UPL I think Graal itself is GPL2+Classpath because it's derived from a codebase that was itself licensed that way, not because Oracle actually want ambiguity. If they wanted that, their new from-fresh codebases wouldn't be under a more precise open source license.