How to handle non-free parts of a free software project

[Elad Alfassa]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:13 AM, Manuel Faux <manuel.faux at conf.at> wrote:

> NetBeans 7.4 requires a file called jnlp-servlet.jar which is part of
> the Oracle JDK and itself non-free licensed. The file is not required
> for building, but for specific functions of the software.


> More concrete, the file is required if "one wants to build a packaged
> war file of JNLP version of a suite".
>
> It seems like only the class jnlp.sample.servlet.JnlpDownloadServlet is
> required, but I could not find it in the OpenJKD.
>
> How is this normally handled? Should we add a file to the docs which
> describes that for this specific functionality that file is required?
>
> Manuel
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The answer is simple. Remove the file. Don't distribute it in Fedora. Have
a README.fedora file in /usr/share/docs/netbeans (or whatever) which
explains that this file was removed due to licensing issues and how to get
it.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer nor a representative of Fedora Legal. You
should contact them in  the legal mailing list to get proper clarification
of this situation from a legal point of view.
-- 
-Elad Alfassa.
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