[OSM-talk] Java and freedom

[David Sheldon]

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 03:44:38PM +0100, Nick Hill wrote:
> My contributions to OSM are limited by this stumbling block. I am not 
> inclined to use non-free java. I have been brushing up on my Java over the 
> past few days to see if there is any way (with my currently very limited 
> java knowledge) I can make the OSM Java applications available to free 
> software platforms.

JOSM requires Java 1.5, the applet 1.4. 

The best thing for you to do for the free-software community would be to
extend your free platform of choice so that it can run software such as
ours without modification. That way the most people will benefit from
your efforts. Run the code on your platform, fix the features that are
missing and so stopping it from running.

For most people the beer-freeness of Java, and the availability of
programming tools is sufficient to make it the tool of choice.

David 
  (used to work on the class library for Mono)

-- 
"You can't say pre (pre-pub-curry) pub without brackets."
  -- dws's evidence for the need to deprecate the English language.