[Replicant] Replicant 6.0

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 21:58:16 +0100
Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org> wrote:

> > Last question: What if some these jars were built using a non-free
> > java version?  
> 
> I believe it is possible to have free software that is built with a
> non-free compiler.  The license for the software itself, and that of
> the compiler, has to permit redistribution though.
As far as I know, source code compilation doesn't affect the copyright
of a work, however some compilers also include some other code inside
the generated binary.
This is very common in C, see crt0[1] for more details.

Non-free compilers also creates other issues such as the "trusting
trust"[2] problem. You cannot know if the binary really corresponds to
the source code since you don't have the compiler source code.

So, because of that, it's a really really good idea to build the
toolchain or have it built by a distribution, especially if building it
is not trivial.

I'm not a java compiler specialist, all I know is from openJDK/icedtea,
and gcj. So it may not even apply to Android's dalvik.

On openJDK/icedtea javac is the java compiler, it compiles .java source
code in .class java bytecode.
Then the jvm can run the bytecode, which is lower level.

References:
-----------
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0, with GCC it's under GPLv3 with
   some additional permissions, see:
   https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_Trusting_Trust#Compiler_backdoors

Denis.
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