Legality of merging legally distributable jars?

Question

hi,
does anyone know if given a handful of third party jars which you are allowed to distribute individually (eg. the sun xml support like jaxb-api.jar and sax.jar) its also legal to merge these into a single jar and distribute that?
if not what about the case where you have a single jar in which there are the individual jars?
thanks,
asjf

Answer 1

The former would depend on the wording in the licence
which permits redistribution.some background info:
from "C:\jwsdp-1.2\docs\ReleaseNotes.html"
"C. License to Distribute Redistributables. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including but not limited to
Section 4 (Java Technology Restrictions) of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited
license to reproduce and distribute those components specifically identified as redistributable in the Software "Release Notes"
file ("Redistributables") provided that: (i) you distribute the Redistributables complete and unmodified (unless otherwise
specified in the applicable Release Notes file), and only bundled as part of your Programs, (ii) you do not distribute
additional software intended to supersede any portion of the Redistributables, (iii) you do not remove or alter any
proprietary legends or notices contained in or on the Redistributables, (iv) you only distribute the Redistributables
pursuant to a license agreement that protects Sun's interests consistent with the terms contained in the Agreement, (v)
you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement
amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any
third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software, and (vi)
if you distribute the Java Secure Socket Extension package, include the following statement as part of product
documentation (whether hard copy or electronic), as a part of a copyright page or proprietary rights notice page,
in an "About" box or in any other form reasonably designed to make the statement visible to users of the Software:
"This product includes code licensed from RSA Data Security"."
from the ReleaseNotes document referred to above:
"The following Java WSDP components are individually redistributable. Redistribution of a component entails the redistribution of all files comprising the component and any dependent components.
FCS Component Files
JAXP jaxp-api.jar, dom.jar, sax.jar, xalan.jar, xercesImpl.jar, xsltc.jar
JAXB * jaxb-api.jar, jaxb-xjc.jar, jaxb-impl.jar, jaxb-libs.jar, jax-qname.jar, namespace.jar, relaxngDataype.jar, xsdlib.jar
JAXR jaxr-api.jar, jaxr-impl.jar, castor-0.9.3.9-xml.jar, fscontext.jar, jaas.jar, providerutil.jar, JAXP
* If the application will not be doing any compilation at runtime, the jaxb-xjc.jar file does not need to be redistributed with the application. "