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OSI Approves Sun's CDDL

Posted by timothy on from the free-license dept.

njcoder writes "CNET is reporting that Sun's Community Development and Distribution License has received approval from the Open Source Initiative on Friday. The CDDL has been rumored to be the proposed license for OpenSolaris which is expected to be released by the end of the month."

29 comments

  1. What about RMS? by uyguremre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did FSF approve this license too?

    1. Re:What about RMS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Who cares about RMS?

    2. Re:What about RMS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Who cares about RMS?
      Damn - you beat me to it...
    3. Re:What about RMS? by zemoo · · Score: 2, Informative

      The FSF doesn't need to approve anything - it's not GPL compatible anyways.

  2. Early poster scans original artical before posting by anomalous+cohort · · Score: 1

    This is for Solaris, not Java.

  3. Slashdot is hard to understand by SunFan · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Solaris is going to be full-blown Open Source Software, under an OSI-approved license. Does this mean nothing to the FOSS fanboys out there?

    Slashdot went crazy over a token patent licensing scheme by IBM, but Sun aquired the IP to make OpenSolaris free to everyone...and nothing not even a dozen comments.

    Are you really that beholden to cheap marketing and fanboyism?

    --
    -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    1. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by jcgf · · Score: 1
      Are you really that beholden to cheap marketing and fanboyism?

      But of course. This is /. after all.

      Jared

    2. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by tolan-b · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm afraid I'm pretty suspicious of Sun at the moment, I'm going to reserve comment until I see how this pans out.

    3. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      School doesn't let out until 2:15.

    4. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by finkployd · · Score: 1

      Slashdot is not a single consciousness, everyone here has their own opinions and many times they differ.

      I'm excited about this because I am sometimes wary of Sun as a company, their technology usually rocks hard. Solaris 10 looks quite exciting.

      Finkployd

    5. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well you can't mix and match with Linux or other GPLed SW...what about the BSDs? What about Darwin? If it is open source but not usable, what is it?

    6. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by SunFan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well you can't mix and match with Linux or other GPLed SW...what about the BSDs? What about Darwin? If it is open source but not usable, what is it?

      Well, ask the BSD people what they would think if you submitted a patch that included code from Linux. They'd probably freak out.

      All Sun would be doing is trying to keep GPL code out of the core Solaris system--no different than the BSDs.

      BTW, Solaris _does_ include GPL'd software and other OSS software. Take a look under /usr/sfw/, /opt/sfw/, /usr/bin/, /usr/perl5/, /usr/apache/, /usr/apache2/, /usr/gnome/, and /usr/staroffice7/ (OpenOffice.org).

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    7. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by turgid · · Score: 1

      Welcome to slashdot :-)

      --
      Stick Men
    8. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by njcoder · · Score: 3, Insightful
      There are tons of open source projects out there. There were tons of openn source projects before linux existed and will be around long after linux is dead.

      Why do so many of you *#$&(## think that open source is all about linux and how everthing open source has to benefit linux? It's the most disgusting type of attitude I see here and the most harmful to oss.

      --
      Open Source Java DAO Generator
    9. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by mpcooke3 · · Score: 1

      Well quite.

      I'm still waiting for Gnu/Hurd to be finished.

    10. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      BSD doesn't stop me from mixing BSD-ed code with GPL-ed code and releasing it under the GPL. So Solaris is thus *far* different from BSD.

      My question was this: Can Solaris code be mixed with other codebases? Or is it a "standalone" collection of isolated and lonely code?

    11. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      Sorry to have confused you. I don't think it is all about Linux. Far from it. It is all about GNU, of which the Linux kernel is a very useful part.

      Also, I think you are confusing what you call "open source projects", and "oss". OSS does not predate GNU. While there was an openess in computer science before GNU, it was the closing of that very same openess that lead to GNU. OSS is a Johnny-come-lately with an interesting point of view. Whether or not "harm" to oss means harm to Free software is open to debate. If I had to choose between losing either OSS or GNU, I'd pull the plug on OSS without hesitation.

    12. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by njcoder · · Score: 1
      My point is still the same. Why does solaris, or any other open source project need to be able to have it's code mixed in with other projects for it to be useful as you imply? The benefit of solaris going open source is to the people that use solaris and those that write software for it.

      As far as I can tell, it's the first commercial unix, if not commercial os in general that is going open source. One of the arguments people make for linux over commercial unixes, is that it's open and people can contribute to it to fix bugs, make enhancements, etc, and review the code. So making solaris open source will be good for solaris and the people that use it.

      Just because you can't use it in Linux or other GNU software doesn't mean it is useless.

      --
      Open Source Java DAO Generator
    13. Re:Slashdot is hard to understand by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      Well Redhat is a commercial OS, as is Novel/SuSE, and Mandrake, and etc...

      I is true that "Just because you can't use it in Linux or other GNU software doesn't mean it is useless." However, this limits its usefulness. I'm coming from an open science point of view. Imagine if you were trying to solve a word problem, and your teacher marked you off for mixing analytic geometry and trig in your solution because the license on the use of the two weren't compatible. That doesn't mean either is less valueable within it's sphere, just that the gestalt of the two is declared illegal.

      Personally, I'd like to see what did result from the mixing and matching between the Linux codebases, BSD codebases, and the Solaris codebase. That just sounds exciting, and full of potential.

  4. It's about community, not licenses. by rjh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You could release the entire Windows XP codebase under the GPL and you wouldn't see an active open-source community spring up around it--not immediately, at least. Community-friendly licensing is a prerequisite for communities, but putting a community-friendly license on Solaris isn't enough to cause solaris-kernel@kernel.org to come into being.

    While I certainly welcome Solaris to the open-source table, my question for Sun Microsystems is "all right, and what are you prepared to do to help a community form?" They don't have to do very much; just a developer's mailing list, Bugzilla and responsiveness from Sun engineers would do worlds.

    Sun has already taken the biggest step by open-sourcing Solaris. The remaining steps are tiny by comparison, and quite painless. So, come on, Sun. Take those last couple of steps. Please. I, and many other open-source geeks, look forward to it.

    I'll even meet you halfway on it. As soon as you release Solaris under an open-source license and put ISOs available for download, I'll install Solaris on one of my spare partitions. Assuming my hardware is compatible, I'll commit to using Solaris as my desktop UNIX for the next three months. Whenever I find a usability problem, I'll file Bugzilla reports. If GNOME won't compile, I'll submit patches. I'll do my part for open-source Solaris, as my own show of good faith.

    Welcome to the open-source OS party, Solaris. There's no cover charge, the beer is cheap and the live band is surprisingly good. We're glad you could join us. :)

    1. Re:It's about community, not licenses. by bout · · Score: 3, Informative
      > ...
      > my question for Sun Microsystems is "all right, and what are you
      > prepared to do to help a community form?" ...

      Well, for starters, check out the OpenSolaris Community Manager's Blog and Technorati's OpenSolaris "tag" (category) site...

    2. Re:It's about community, not licenses. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You've been blogged! Check out the reply he posted.

  5. Re:Early poster scans original artical before post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > This is for Solaris...

    Well yes and no... It's for any software project that wants to use it.

  6. Sun is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sun will be out of business in 5 years. Open sourcing their main product is just one of the signs. Overreliance on outsourcing is another.

    1. Re:Sun is dying by SunFan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sun will be out of business in 5 years.

      Solaris 10 has a number of features over Linux and Windows, and Sun is now officially cheaper to buy from than Red Hat and Microsoft. Don't be so quick to write them off, especially since they turned profitable.

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  7. Re:Early poster scans original artical before post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No but it does raise an interesting point, because Sun likes to claim that Java already is open-source, yet the SCSL license for Java is nowhere near meeting the OSI demands.

    And now that Sun has released something as actual OSI-approved open source. They can't claim ignorance of the difference. I hope they stop bending words now.

  8. It's Java that's the trouble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Sun has kept an entire *language* closed and there are some really horrible licensing terms on the source code (Basically, if you've downloaded the source you can forget about working on anything compatiable). That is so evil it makes microsoft look good. However much nice stuff they do for the community, it doesn't count for much until they do something about Java.

    Btw am I the only one getting a ton of "You can't post to this page" errors before being able to post?

    1. Re:It's Java that's the trouble by SunFan · · Score: 1

      Trolling is quite a difficult art to master. A good troll can get a dozen responses before people catch on.

      Your basic complaint is that Sun's reference implementation of Java isn't under a GPL or BSD license. However, the language itself is fully specified, the JDK is free of charge, you can even include the JRE in your own product. Anyone is free to implement their own JDK, as far as I can tell, and some people and companies are doing this. Java is a much more clear-cut environment than .NET in this regard, so your comparison to Microsoft is irrelevant. Microsoft's complete avoidance of Linux as a .NET platform furthers this argument--Java is fully supported on Linux.

      You have to decide whether the JCP and the JDK are open enough for your needs, that's all you can do.

      And who knows, if OpenSolaris works really well, maybe a similar model can be applied to Java? Consider how the software industry is being turned inside out, lately, with open source operating systems, open source office suites, open source you name it, with only the most difficult software remaining proprietary. The only certainty is that time will tell--it takes time for people to figure this stuff out.

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  9. Jonathan Schwartz comments on CDDL by vladnik · · Score: 1

    http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160643 Sun's chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz said that he expects the Solaris source code to be released "hopefully by the end of this month". "The fact that the OSI approved the licence gives us carte blanche to leverage that or the BSD licence or the General Public Licence [GPL] in the release of Solaris," said Schwartz.