jai-imageio-core license questions

[Adam Goode]

Hi,

jai-imageio-core is a Java package from Sun that includes plugins for
Java that adds various image codecs, most notably TIFF. It would be
really useful to have this in Fedora, so I'm thinking of packaging.

Unfortunately, there are a few issues:

GOOD: the website claims it is BSD
https://jai-imageio-core.dev.java.net/

BAD:  it contains jj2000 which doesn't seem like BSD
https://jai-imageio-core.dev.java.net/source/browse/jai-imageio-core/src/...

GOOD: TIFF seems to be BSD
https://jai-imageio-core.dev.java.net/source/browse/jai-imageio-core/src/...



I assume jj2000 can't go in to Fedora. I filed a Sun bugreport about
this BSD confusion, but they are quiet on it. Am I wrong? Can jj2000 go
in? (It would be useful.) Would I just need to strip jj2000 out of this
package to make it ok for Fedora?


Thanks,

Adam

[Tom Callaway]

On Fri, 2008-12-05 at 17:48 -0500, Adam Goode wrote:

>  I assume jj2000 can't go in to Fedora. I filed a Sun bugreport
> about
>  this BSD confusion, but they are quiet on it. Am I wrong? Can jj2000 go
>  in? (It would be useful.) Would I just need to strip jj2000 out of this
>  package to make it ok for Fedora? 
For two reasons, jj2000 can't go into Fedora:

1. The license it is under is non-free (only "JJ2000 Partners" have
right to use, there is no right to modify, heavy use restrictions based
on standard compliance).
2. JPEG 2000 is heavily patent mined.

You'd need to strip jj2000 out of the source tarball and ship a "clean"
tarball to make it okay for Fedora.

Sun is historically really bad at licensing issues like this, although
recently, they seem to be at least more interested in resolving these
issues. Unfortunately, the patent issues around JPEG 2000 mean that even
if this code was under an acceptable license, we still couldn't ship it.

~spot

[Adam Goode]

Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>  For two reasons, jj2000 can't go into Fedora:
>  
>  1. The license it is under is non-free (only "JJ2000 Partners" have
>  right to use, there is no right to modify, heavy use restrictions based
>  on standard compliance).
>  2. JPEG 2000 is heavily patent mined.
>  
>  You'd need to strip jj2000 out of the source tarball and ship a "clean"
>  tarball to make it okay for Fedora. 
Yeah, this is what I thought. Thanks for verifying this.

>  Sun is historically really bad at licensing issues like this,
> although
>  recently, they seem to be at least more interested in resolving these
>  issues. Unfortunately, the patent issues around JPEG 2000 mean that even
>  if this code was under an acceptable license, we still couldn't ship it. 
This seems strange to me: if patents are a problem then why does Fedora
ship 2 other JPEG 2000 libraries already? (jasper since FC3, openjpeg
since F7.)



Thanks,

Adam

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

> >>>> "AG" == Adam Goode
> <adam(a)spicenitz.org&gt; writes: 
AG> This seems strange to me: if patents are a problem then why does
AG> Fedora ship 2 other JPEG 2000 libraries already? (jasper since
AG> FC3, openjpeg since F7.)

Maybe they need to removed.  Not every reviewer feels able to do a
patent review, you know, and occasionally things get in that
shouldn't.

 - J<

[Tom Callaway]

On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 14:44 -0500, Adam Goode wrote:

>  This seems strange to me: if patents are a problem then why does
> Fedora
>  ship 2 other JPEG 2000 libraries already? (jasper since FC3, openjpeg
>  since F7.) 
The lawyers are thinking extra-double hard about this (thanks for
pointing it out).
When they decide something, I'll let you know.

In the interim, if you wanted to try to resolve the licensing issue with
Sun, that might not be a bad idea. :)

~spot

[Adam Goode]

Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>  On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 14:44 -0500, Adam Goode wrote:
>  
> > This seems strange to me: if patents are a problem then why does Fedora
> > ship 2 other JPEG 2000 libraries already? (jasper since FC3, openjpeg
> > since F7.)
>  
>  The lawyers are thinking extra-double hard about this (thanks for
>  pointing it out).
>  When they decide something, I'll let you know. 
Glad to be of help. :)

>  
>  In the interim, if you wanted to try to resolve the licensing issue with
>  Sun, that might not be a bad idea. :) 
Here is my old bug report (they basically said they weren't shipping the
code, which is not true, and left it at that):

https://jai-imageio-core.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=162


I also tried contacting some of the jj2000 authors a year ago, and they
basically said that as reference software for ISO, "the code becomes
pretty flexible to use", but didn't know about open source interoperability.


Adam