Fastjar, copyright, and upstream...

[Jim Wilson]

Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> This might lead one to believe that fastjar is imported from upstream.
> It isn't, since upstream appears to be effectively unmaintained; it 
> hasn't been altered since 2001.

Yes, this is a problem.  The steering committee has been discussing this 
with rms, and this is on my list of things to look into, along with 
libffi, boehm-gc, etc.  I expect this will be a long, slow, and 
complicated process.

One possible solution is to get assignments from the original authors.
Another possible solution is to create our own upsteam package on 
savannah.nongnu.org.  Another possible solution is to stop including 
fastjar in the gcc release tarballs.  Another possible solution is to 
write a GNU jar from scratch.

> Portions of fastjar are copyright Bryan Burns and portions are copyright 
> Cory Hollingsworth; the rest seems to be copyright FSF.

I don't believe that any of fastjar is copyright FSF.  The FSF does not 
accept copyright assignments for packages it doesn't own.

Jim