What does "GPL with classpath exception" mean in practice?

Posted by Thilo on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Thilo
Published on 2011-11-12T23:37:29Z Indexed on 2011/11/13 2:07 UTC
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java

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licensing

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gpl

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lgpl

Oracle seems to license all their Java-related open source code under the GPL with a classpath exception. From what I understand, this seems to allow to combine these libraries with your own code into products that do not have to be covered by the GPL. How does this work? What are examples of how I can and cannot use these classes? Why was this new license used as opposed to the LGPL, which seems to allow for pretty much the same things, but is better established and understood? What are the differences to the LGPL?

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