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Sun Submits New License for Open Source Approval
Wannabe Code Monkey writes "Sun has submitted their Common Development and Distribution License to the Open Source Initiative for approval as an Open Source license. It appears that this license is what Sun plans to release Solaris under according to an article at news.com.com.com. Of particular note is: 'The CDDL is not expected to be compatible with the GPL, since it contains requirements that are not in the GPL,' Claire Giordano of Sun's CDDL team said in its submission."
The implication here is that there's something bad about them not wanting to GPL their source. Why should they? Simply making it open source of some kind seems good enough. That way we get to see it and potentially modify it for our own benefit. Not having read their proposed license, I'm assuming it won't allow anyone to resell the code. And why should they? It's their family jewels, and I see no reason they should allow competitors to take it and run.
A kiss - because they're still trying to somehow connect their business with Open Source movement. They're making new license for every product they release to the Community, but none of these licenses is compatible with GPL. Which is OK for me, I'm not a religious fanatic, I just want my software to be free (as in beer) and usable - and Sun's product's I'm using are free (as in beer), regardless of what you might say.
A kick - because they still prefer business. Novell and Mandrake can somehow make it with GPL - maybe Sun should also try?
Well, that makes me happy. It seems to say that if you hold the Sun license, you can't patent-shakedown anybody in the Sun community. I'll buy that; getting this kind of license adopted by many people is probably the only way to end the horror. I'd be interested to see whether Microsoft gets all ornery about this license.
Of course, I'm also interested to see how much I'll get flamed by even implying support for a license besides the GNU GPL.
I'm still not sure about this key question:
Is it now possible to put Sun's funky new filesystem straight into Linux, or does someone have to rewrite it?
When they say not-GPL-compatible, I assume no, but I'd like someone with a better grasp of this to confirm it.
I am glad to see sun going in to an open source direction, but how long will it last this time?
When Solaris 8 source was released, it was not exaclty open source, and did not last long at all.
Part of the problem is also the compiler. I think it was a big mistake when UNIX vendors unbundled the compiler from their distributions. Half of the Linux success is based on having a fully configured development environment right out of the box.
Some how I don't think Solaris 10 compiles with gcc and since most coding I do today is hobbiest, I don't have $3,000 in the budget for a needed commercial compiler. Although I do like Solaris very much, this is my reason for liking BSD and Linux even more.
I don't see why couldn't go with one of the existing licenses: surely, among BSD, GPL, LGPL, MPL, CPL, and all the other already approved licenses, they could have found something. Based on Sun's history and relationship with open source, I would wait for a careful review: it is quite possible that Sun is trying to slip something in there.
(Of course, the license is only on Solaris, so it doesn't really matter that much anyway. If Sun used this for Java, it would matter more.)
Sun isn't a person. They are neither nice nor naughty. They make cold, calculating decisions based on the business environment and based on maximizing profit. That's why they have released OpenOffice and are releasing Solaris under a FOSS license, and why they are not releasing Java under a FOSS license. That's all. Don't believe marketing hype that tries to make you look at any company as a person.
Sure, but not because I work at Sun. Like I said, I don't have anything to do with this stuff.
So, besides distributing patches to software, we can start distributing patches to licenses as well?
The provision you quoted is nothing new, and I really don't see what the big deal is. From the GPL:
No, it would be an "additional restriction" and therefore incompatible with the GPL.
And you're an anti-GPL zealot... Just as bad in my view.
Authors of source have the right to license their work however they like, whether it be GPL, BSD, CPL, MPL, etc. Diversity in licenses is a good thing, but that doesn't make the GPL evil.
-ragnar
The CDDL holds that anyone redistributing CDDL-licensed software cannot assert a patent claim against any other contributor to that software without breaching the license and forfeiting his ability to redistribute the software.
This constitues a "further restriction" on the recipient of the software beyond the restrictions set forth by the GPL, and is thus incompatible with section 6 of the GPL.
These sorts of patent amnesty clauses are generally considered a Good Thing, and are common in many newer open source licenses (the MPL of course, and the CPL, etc.); something like this is pretty likely to be part of v3 of the GPL. On the other hand, very clearly Sun deliberately chose to use a GPL-incompatible license because they don't want Solaris's unique features ending up in Linux. (Otherwise they could have dual-licensed under CDDL and GPL, like Mozilla does with the MPL.)
I realize completely that no large company is a 'hive mind', but usually they do have marketing and legal departments that present a somewhat unified company face to the world and Sun doesn't seem to do that. It could be because they are still an engineering company (kinda), which means their execs mistakenly believe they are engineers and don't really realize that their public statements are viewed as company policy, who knows - I've seen plenty of smart people move to management and middle management and become complete morons within 6 months, maybe it happens with execs too.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
A company could GPL-licence software that used a patent they owned and then sue users and distributers later for infringing on that patent. It would be a terrible, but legal, thing to do.
Probably not, I am pretty sure the court would consider such an action to be in bad faith, or failing to mitigate infringement, or willfully contributing to the infringement.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
No one in their right mind would start a new project with this patent-apocalypse clause. With all the patent litigation lately it would reflect poorly on Sun to kick off such a large project using a poorly considered license that doesn't cover the legal issues developers face today.
Most new OSI-approved licenses seem to be ill-considered.
Of course, if you (or anyone else here for that matter) are complaining without actually knowing the implications of this license, you should consider the number of people who would be quite happy to annihilate free software projects by colliding them with their own, at the loss of both projects. That's what these clauses really do. They don't provide any protection, they just give mutually assured maximum destruction.
What Sun probably did not do, was triple license for compatibility, as Mozilla did (you can use alternative licenses of GPL or LGPL if you choose). This makes the work much less useful to outsiders who are not part of the Sun mainstream.
OpenOffice.org is Dual SISSL/LGPL.
I wouldn't doubt solaris being the same.
Jay | http://oldos.org
In this sense, the GPL is viral. If you use any GPL code -- even a line -- in your program, you must GPL all the code in your program.
This statement isn't totally accurate. Copying a single line of code constitutes fair use, which the GPL has no authority over (since it only licenses, and doesn't restrict). Thus, you can copy a single line of code without being compelled to GPL your work. (And of course virality only applies if you distribute it.)
What I see as a vital point in distributing code with source and license allowing for changes is the ability for the users to change the code. This might seem bit obvious, but it was the nerve behind GPL (you can read about it in the book about Stallman). For me Linux or BSD are much better than Solaris, because when something does not work in Solaris I have to find a klugde to go around. If I have the same problem in Linux or BSD I can always fix the broken code. This is of course tedious task, but sometimes you have no other choice. In closed source environment you don't have such an option. In my opinion releasing Solaris with source code would really help. It would also allow for writing better software for Solaris, since there is no better way to understand the inner workings of some software feature than to see the source code. The only problem is how much code would be open sourced. I would hope for the most important parts of kernel (memory, scheduler) and network stack (fire engine). Otherwise there is really not much sense in open sourcing (at least in my opinion).
You can defy gravity... for a short time