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Sun Opens OpenSolaris.Org
An anonymous reader writes "Sun has launched the first version of opensolaris.org, featuring a small initial drop of source code. The idea is to make a display of good faith to the Solaris community while the rest of the source code due diligence is completed. The source code for Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) is available for download under the terms of the newly OSI-approved CDDL license."
Sun really seems to like the Open-.org naming convention. They are probably trying to oppose Steve Jobs' iNaming.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
I just want the cool features of solaris (such as hot-swappable processors on a multi-processor system) to be ported to Linux. Honestly, bot OS can and should merge into one entity. less fork, more merge.
I'm glad that the source code is starting to be released, but could someone more knowledgable explain what Dynamic Tracing is? Is it something that would be useful to a normal user?
I just hope these wax covered wings wont melt my linux.
Bout time , been waiting for this announcement for a long while. Scott, we appreciate you.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
1600 Patents? Wonder how many of those did they really invent
"Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much." -Walter Lippmann
Isn't this sort of a precursor to Gentoo porting to it?
Shocking, I tell you.
Take it easy? I'll take it anyway I can get it . . .
...until SCO sues Sun?
What a lot of Slashdotters might not realize is that Sun has spent literally millions of hours over the last couple of years "unencumbering" Solaris from patented code that was owned by other companies opposed to the open sourcing of their intellectual property. They did this for no reason other than to prove to the open source community that they are serious about open sourcing Solaris, and hopefully to sell some good Sun iron in the process.
It would be nice to see some Slashdotters give Sun their well deserved props for a change, instead of ripping on them.
"What? You gave us OpenOffice? That's not good enough..." I hoping this thread doesn't turn into another Sun bash fest because this time they deserve a little respect for giving away what I see as the crown jewels of their company.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
With this slogan: "OpenSolaris.org now "open" for business"?? ;-) Business?? :-(
:-/
Ummm, this people have to change the PR department. They need developers not biz.
And not take practices from Micro$oft: "Expect to see buildable Solaris code here in Q2 2005."
Their press release at sun.com said OpenSolaris via the CDDL will make 1,600 patents available to open source.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Otherwise it will enjoy a slow death. Obviously maturing and growth of Linux, scared the hell out of Schwartz and his cohorts. Now they are trying to appeal to the OS community to give their precious operating system, which they locked up under layers of safes many many years and expect them to stop or slow down working on linux and make their solaris better instead, which they will be more than happy to incorporate the development and charge the corporations an arm and a leg.
I am not sure about you but I am not buying this half-hearted OpenSolaris movement.
Come, come to my web little fly, said spider...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Yes, I've already read the wonderful glowing market-speak summary of the CDDL at OpenSolaris.org...
What I really need, and haven't yet found is a nice overall summary of the key licensing points behind the CDDL from someone who isn't Sun.
Anyone?
Thanks in advance!
Awww... "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters." my cats lame, and it only says junk! thats insulting!
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.open solaris.org
OS Server Last changed IP address
Linux Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_jk/1.2.6
Linux Apache/1.3.27 (Unix)
I run SUSE and Redhat ES server here at work but I can't help being excited about DTrace and what it can offer the whole Open Source *Nix world. Sun is definitely helping the Open Source movement by first reelasing OpenOffice and now, DTrace, the most talkeda bout feature of Solaris 10. Wonder how that will effect this between a Solaris developer and a Linux kernel coder?
This guy is way out there
Part of this release is the opening of more than 1,600 patents to the open source community.
:)
link
IBM just got outdone on their 500 patent release. Let's see them come back with 5,000! Come on, it can be a Sun/IBM "who can give away the most patents to open source" war
Finkployd
Solaris x86 and Solaris SPARC are 90+% the same source code, differing only where porting requires. So, the OS programmers on the SPARC side == the OS programmers on the x86 side.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
How is opening their OS codebase, one of the crown jewels of the company, half-hearted? They are trying to remove as many barriers to Solaris adoption as they can. Costs to much? Free downloads have been available for years now. So "Free As In Beer" has been handled. Can't view the source code? Here comes OpenSolaris, under an OSI approved license. The license is not the GPL to be sure..but neither are the BSD licenses, the Mozilla license and the Apache license...you gonna bitch about them?
The fifth board member will be Bruce Perens. I think I tipped it with this. For the link shy:
FTA: However, a source close to Open Source Risk Management (OSRM), which commissioned Ravicher's review, claimed to know what the Jan. 25 announcement was and told NewsForge that it had nothing to do with Ravicher's study.
So, come on Bruce... what's the announcement. We know they meant you! Spill it baby
put the what in the where?
I'm more interested in the rumour that they're going to break their five year agreement with fujitsu over the SPARC.
I was planning on using the SPARC for it's tagged instructions, and register window capability. But I may have to move to the MIPS if they eventually go the way of the Alpha.
UNIX was open source long before Linux ever came around. Then things changed and all UNIX was closed source for a while. Now it will be open again. Linux may have affected timing, but hackers and open source would have come around eventually, no matter what.
I am not sure about you but I am not buying this half-hearted OpenSolaris movement.
You won't have to buy it--it will be free!
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
They should release a version of window. Like when longhorn comes out if ever, they could release 2000's sourcecode (picked this one because its source was already leaked). It might solve alot of problems or make alot more. I think it would really work, but it will never happen.
I have been using Sun operating systems for over 13 years, and I have had the greatest experiences with them. I highly recommend that trying them out to anyone who has any interest in UNIX. Dtrace is unique - no other system has anything like it. And, by the way, it is usually much easier to convince the management to deploy Sun products than it is with the more grass-roots UNIX-like alternatives.
No,, wait no license needed....
(two weeks later)
You need to buy a license...
(two weeks later)
No license needed.
Bryan Cantrill, one of the DTrace developers wrote this blog entry as a general introduction to the source code layout and also to DTrace. This post by Adam Leventhal goes into some more detail.
82678 lines of C were made public. No registration, no click through license before download. The OpenSolaris FAQ is pretty good btw, and there's also a roadmap page.
According to this blog (the entry dated 15:43), those in the pilot program (more than 100 developers out side of Sun) have today gotten access to the entire Solaris source base, and have already built their own version - screen shot.
If you notice its the same fro open sourcing frotnier fro Dave Winer..
Only the core devleopers of the OS and no outsiders..
and tha tis not enough to reoslve the shrinking market share..
It snot low price alone that People are choosing Red Hat or other Linux vendors but the degree of openeness and cooperative goals world wide amoung very different companies like Sun(Gnome), IBM(Red Hat/Suse), HP, and etc..
and when you have Solaris hardware at $16,000 compared to the same hardware from tigerdirect at $6,000 I think maybe there is a large problem at SUN
Don't Tread on OpenSource
here
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Another attempt to legitimize software patents, a strategy IBM and Microsofts new sockpuppet seem to agree on. Software patents are illegal in Europe, if Sun and IBM really care why don't they fix the broken US patent system?
If Solaris is based on SCO's System 5 code, then wouldn't opening it's source (whether Sun has the right or not) potentially pollute other open source projects that borrowed from it?
If Solaris is based on BSD and has no SCO code in it, I guess that's not an issue. But then why did they take out a SCO license? I imagine some conspiracy theorists will say simply to hurt Linux, but that can't be the whole story, can it?
IBM had a SCO license too, but that's because AIX has SysV code in it. That's not the code they gave to Linux, but if they were to open-source all of AIX and pieces of SCO code migrated to Linux, that would be a problem, no?. So why not with Solaris too?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Ok, I read the link to the sun page about D-Trace but that really didn't answer the questions I had. So can any Sun users explain:
:)
1. Why has Sun open sourced this of all things?
2. It seems very similar to gdb in role. Is this assumption correct? Does it compare favorably?
3. Is a Linux/BSD/whatever port of this desirable/attainable? Or does it rely to much on the guts of SunOS? Do we have better tools already on those OS's?
Please be gentle.
Its all unix, man.
I presume (though I don't really know) that Solaris needs to be built with Sun's C compiler. Is this compiler coming forth as an open source release too? If not, is it going to be freely available? If I remember correctly, you currently need to pay in order to get Sun's cc.
If it is coming, this is great news. A compiler highly optimized for Sparc may benefit all operating systems that run on it. Who knows, maybe their x86 compiler has some good features too. Sun's libc (probably highly optimized for Sparc) would be a nice thing to have. Anything else?
Since we're discussing a copyright license, why did some lawyer mention the "intellectual property" buzzword and then explicitly rule out patents and trademarks? Trade secrets don't apply here so there's no point in mentioning anything other than copyright.
Avoid this license it was written by an amateur!
And OpenSolaris is the anti-Linux. OpenSolaris is a professional open source operating system centrally controlled and run by a corporation, rather than anti-capitlists and anarchists who's only goal is chaos and hacking.
For those reasons, Sun has released OpenSolaris. It is a direct effort to take the best open source developers off of disorganized projects like Linux and onto a more corporate-friendly project that will in time become the de-facto operating system for all Unix deployments.
It is protected by Sun patents and Sun only licenses the code as open source under the CDDL, not the GPL. Therefore if the Linux community ports DTrace to Linux without dropping the GPL and adopting the CDDL, they will be in violation of Sun's patents.
Just out of curiosity, who owns CDE? Is Sun able to release this as open source? I've wanted to get my hands on version that works well with Linux or is open source for awhile now, with no luck...
a compiler would be nice
Sun's license is basicallt the same as that used for Mozilla. Both prevent their source code from being pirated to other competing projects.
Mozilla prevents their code from going into IE, Sun prevents their code from going into Linux. Seems fair to me.
So, I downoad the code, and I take a look at it - the first thing through my mind, is "OMG - look at all the spagetti code!"
Then I realized I opened a C file with Unix returns with notepad.
Oops.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
They can be enforced against GPL software including the Linux kernel.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
over 1,600 patents are being contributed to the open source community from the open solaris website. now the question remains when the refer to the "Open Source Community" are they referring to Open Source as in their CDDL licence - or Open Source Community as it is normally interpreted? Not that I support software patents at all though mind.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Note that only projects under the CDDL are allowed to use these patents. Linux developers MUST REALIZE that they are NOT covered by this IP release. Sun has just fired a warning shot across the bow of Linux, and will almost certainly take legal action against Linux developers in the near future as more and more OpenSolaris code makes it way into the "wild". Anyone thinking of implementing DTRace in Linux (or anything REMOELY like it) should realize that they will most likely be the target of a lawsuit by any number of companies including Sun. Additionally, if it can be proven that they visited opensolaris.org, they will be liable for triple damages.
The problem is that this may have been done too late. Linux has the benefit of a huge brain trust. The comp.os.linux.* Usenet hiearchy alone is an extraordinary support mechanism.
I certainly hope this all succeeds. The more competitors in the market, the better their products will become. But Linux's real strength is the community.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since we're not running solaris 10 here, I decided to pull down a copy of the source code and try it on one of our boxes. I go digging around and can't find a configure file... Hmm, ok documentation... Nope... Can't have any info included with instruction on compiling. Web... Nope.. I'll bite, how do you compile this under Solaris 9?
People still aren't interested, we have linux and the BSD's.
There's no reason to trust Sun after the convienient MS and Kodak settlements. Sun are sliding into obscurity and that's a damn shame because they have some great engineers on staff. If the management were in the same league we'd all be running openslowaris or Sun linux by now.
You sir, appear to have been infected by the babelfishium virus or a related illness.
Please take care to inoculate yourself well before engaging in further conversation, as it's very contagious.
Translation:
Your gentleman, had a liking for infects by the babelfishium virus or correlation illness. Before please take care vaccinates oneself is very good further converses in the participation, according to the original design is unusual infectiously.
The patent license only covers CDDL licensed code. Linux developers who look at this code to create an equivalent for Linux will be liable for triple damages in the inevitable lawsuit that Sun will initiate.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, OpenSolaris is a trap to capture and destroy Linux. Sun is betting on the inevitable migration of their "intellectual property" into Linux, whereby they will sue Linux developers and users into the ground.
You have been warned.
That is all.
May the Schwartz be with you.
I thought this subject would have accumulated much much more responses than this.
Shame on you! I think that you're miserable failures if you ain't going to break the 5000 post sign. Try harder, please.
Hey, you figured out how to script /. posts. Well done. But have you considered that most people round here don't pass the Turing test anyway?
Wake me when Java goes Open Source...
Ha! Suck it, SCO!
There is a big world out there, and not one solution is always right for everything.
Outside of the knee-jerk reactions on /. , the whole world should not switch overnight to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP. Sometimes, other systems are the right answer, for many complex reasons.
I happen to have a particular fondness for Solaris, having been a fan of their hardware for the last 15 years. It's the Devil I know, and I'm comfortable dancing with him.
I think it's amusingly disingenuous of the slashdot Linux-script-kiddie mentality to ignore that for ten years, SunOS Ruled The Roost in open software, for many good reasons. It is not without its warts (Solaris 2.0 through 2.4 being oozing pustules of lossage), but for an entire generation of sysadmins, Sun was the one system you had to know ... You could add on some of the other big players like Digital, AIX and HP-UX, and maybe one or two of the smaller also-rans like the BSD 4.4 cousins or Linux, but the 800 lb. gorilla was Sun.
Finally: any monoculture is a bad thing, whether it is BSD 4.3 on VAXen, SunOS 5.9 on US-IV , or Linux on Wintel hardware -- and it behooves anyone who wants to be taken seriously to study the differences between systems rather than put all of their energy into denegrating that which isn't their pet.
I think that last part really sums up what I find disheartening with the slashdot collective consciousness. It's that the slashborg will put an infinite amount of energy into defending their point of view, without investing any into analyzing the competition. And, sadly, that more than anything is the sign of ignorant zealotry.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Sun's CDDL is compatible with the GPL. It is the GPL that is not compatible with the CDDL.
Did you even bother to read the license? The http://www.opensolaris.org page even has a nice licensing FAQ. So there is no excuse not to educate yourself before posting. (:
The CDDL is far less restrictive than the GPL. Since it is a file based license it can be used in closed source code. It is completely different than the LGPL but from a proprietary developers point of view it has a similar restrictiveness. I'm a Linux developer and I like this license.
Stop using every product in your inventory as a "political" statement, we just don't care anymore. Give customers what they want at a reasonable price and just shut the hell up. If you want to make a statement - make better products.
I would agree that any monoculture is bad. The thing you and those who share your view are missing is that of all those in your list, linux is the only one which is NOT a monoculture.
Just because it's all labeled linux doesn't mean it's all the same. If there are two opposing camps who disagree on how a component is best designed BOTH will be written and available for compilation. There isn't one linux, there are hundreds of linuxes. It may have the same name, but the linux you run on a wristwatch is NOT the same linux you run on an IBM mainframe.
There's a fox in the barn.
I don't like this one bit. Why this emphasis on Netbeans, OpenThis, OpenThat if these programs run on any hardware? Hardware that is normally cheaper than Sun(although admitedly not as cool)?
If every Sun software became open then Sun, the hardware company, will go the way of VA-Linux.
Have they given up and are now willing to die shooting (at Microsoft)? What is left in their magic hats now that Solaris is free?
Broken Hearts are for Assholes. - Frank Zappa
Sun reserves the right to enforce the patents if you use code under a different license.
Although the terms of the license would allow you to fork under the gpl or contribute to a gpl'd project sun could still nail you with the patents.
We used to call Unix Open systems. However, it has not been open since the ATT break up. Sun just wants to capture the label of what they had back in the 70's, when there was real competition.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't think this will hurt linux but I do think it will benefit the BSD projects: you can mix BSD code and Solaris stuff but you can't do this with linux, so there will be more "crosspollination" as the BSD camp calls it.
Either the licenses are compatible or they are not. You cannot mix GPL'ed and CDDL'ed code, therefore they are not compatible. Assigning blame does not solve anything.
Sun's been using the term "Open" in their stuff forever. Remember, Sun's X environment was called "OpenWindows", and even though they've since discontinued the old OpenWindows window manager, their X server still resides in "/usr/openwin".
Though Sun's definition of "Open" has traditionally been "open standards", as opposed to the F/OSS definition which I believe to be "open implementations".
The patented JRE that people can't legally reverse engineer.
If they charged $100 (on average) for the next version, and they got 10 million people to buy it, that would net them, say after me: 1 billion dollars.
And all those java programs out there would HAVE to buy it, or not be able to run. And java 2, or rather 1.5, is already patent-encumbered. So there. They can fuck java programmers anytime.
Let's not forget that they have a deal with MS on Java. If Sun goes under, where does Java end up? Will anyone buy it and have to honor the agreement with MS? Would IBM do that? Would HP do that? No. Microsoft would buy it. They're just letting Sun bleed itself to a slow death before coming to rescue Java and enforce the patents. (and then its bu-bye independent J2EE implemetations. It'll become Microsoft Java Enterprise Edition. And then MS is where it wants to be, with lots of large corporate customers running its software.
Of course, I wish Sun the best. They, however, do not pay me for advice on where to take their company ($400/hr if they do), so I won't.
"Piter, too, is dead."
The press releases say those patents are only for software under the CDDL license and the OpenSolaris process.
You wouldn't expect them to allow Linux to outright lift Solaris code and put it in their kernel, would you?
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Now I can run it right next to my OpenVMS. -- Scott
its gradient background is not dithered!
Nobody care about 64k-screen users anymore... <sigh>
hmmm... dumb...
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Where did you get that idea from? Yes you can mix GPL and CDDL code. Sun's License FAQ basically says so.
Look at it like this. I take your GPL code and I add some CDDL code. I modify it a bit to make it all work together happily. Then I distribute the source code on my website. What are you going to do? Sue me? You can't, I gave you the source code. GPL obligation fulfilled.
This is kind of what the LAME mp3 encoder did with the ISO sources. It was just a source patch.
Sorry about being pedantic but this isn't just all semantics. It is a real issue and it is going to come up. Think of a source only distribution like Gentoo. They could legally get away with this sort of mixing scenario since the user has to compile everything. Maybe this is what Gentoo Portaris is all about? Things might get very interesting.
Good, I hate the GPL.
Personally, I don't care if it's OSI approved - what does the FSF think of the licence?
Incredible. It's actually happening. WAY TO GO SUN!
Now, the great question in open source will be whether the GPL3 and CDDL can be made to be mutually compatible. If this can happen, OpenSolaris and Linux could conceivably combine all their strengths and change the face of computing.
Solaris is Proven and an Industry Tool. Linux has more "street smarts" and some better designed parts (IIRC the scheduler might be an example here?). If I understand matters right now, CDDL code could go into GPL code but not vice versa. Which is a shame in some ways, because I think the Solaris name is a coin that open source could make good use of.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
True, but what are the odds they would do so? I'm guessing if they wanted to they could slap Linux with patent lawsuits anyway, regardless.
Sun cannot be so stupid. There is no money to be made in the long run with Linux patent lawsuits - all you will do is kill Linux. And probably open source itself. Sun is not Microsoft - they cannot scorn all allies and hope to survive.
Really, I don't think much of this whole patent thing in general - releasing 1000 or 10000 isn't enough to remove the threat - a lawsuit over 1 weak patent is still enough to sink most open source projects. IBM's move was good because they stated openly that Linux was part of the patent standoff, but I think that's more or less implicit for most of the software industry anyway. The Linux kernel happens to have both powerful champions and major enemies, but EVEN THERE the patent demon has yet to seriously rear its head, when it is probably the single effective way to kill Linux. It's MAD in a true sense, because if patents ever become offensive weapons in the software world there's going to be nothing left of the US IT industry but a smoking crater full of radioactive legal slime, and the first bomb blowing up over open source would be unlikely to change that in the long run. I bet the release was just an attempt to keep the trolls from claiming the CDDL was an attempted lawsuit mousetrap.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Note also that IBM's grant came just in time to drown out news about 61 European Parliament members asking to restart the software patent debate there from zero. IBM is one of the main parties lobbying for European software patents. Their grant is part of a larger strategy to convince European legislators that Open Source and software patenting are compatible, that could indeed kill Open Source, because it would leave us vulnerable to many software patent lawsuits.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
A lot of people are interested in OpenSolaris. And the lawsuits are things all businesses have to contend with, and no matter how much you try to live in an idyllic fantasy will change that. The two billion Sun got from Microsoft is justice served for how much Microsoft screws the whole industry over. Microsoft needs a few more billion dollar payouts to set them straight.
And, please, put "slowaris" to rest. It's the OS-equivalent of a baseless racial slur. If it had any substance to it, Sun wouldn't be setting records on Opteron and UltraSPARC IV, right now.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
A bit more complicated than that.
There is a big difference between the IBM and SUN patent pledges.
:) Fun stuff though, and I think pragmatism will win the day if there good stuff is delivered.
IBM listed a broad range of software licenses, importantly including the GPL, which means linux is covered.
Sun's license so far is limited to Solaris, or at least it looks that way, where they have contributed code under the CDDL. This means if you take a method (or read about a method) that they use in Solaris and apply it elsewhere you can still get slammed.
Not a black and white issue though, as the discerning reader will note that the GPL has not patent clause at all, so the CDDL is stronger in one sense there. Not sure if Linux is any worse off.
But it will be interesting to see how Solaris comes out as open source, incredibly it has gotten to this point for those who remember the Sun of the past (and even some of the current ranting). Losing market share is an incredible motivator it seems
CDE?
I mean, what kind of nutcrack would you have to be to crave for such an ugly piece of software as CDE?
I mean, ANYTHING in GNU, from fvwm to blackbox, not to mention gnome or kde/Linux is ages ahead.
NO SIG
What's really hilarous is that the screen shot has telnet in use. Telnet. I can only hope its disabled by default, but even so ... I wouldn't choose that as a demo for any OS (Yes, I know connecting to 127.0.0.1 is safe, it's the principle of the thing).
Separately to that, looks interesting.
Anybody know where to look?
GPL incompatible ...
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is with GPL.
Have you ever thought about that?
IMHO Apache 2 is far superior licence than GPL.
Actually, I think Suns Open Source (tm) compatible license, which "counter-attacks" patents with copyrights is pure genious.
I'd not mind if this allowed us to escape the "non-supported" part of Solaris by allowing 32bit SPARC machines and the peripherals they run(Yep, that includes some ZX support) to run a build of this. Throwing out a good chunk of the installed userbase on Solaris 10 and then releasing source for it, is not the best idea out there.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I am interested. I have been for a couple years. I've downloaded Solaris ISO's since version 8 for x86, and I got my hands on some x86 ISOs from a friend of mine for version 7. Please do not talk as though you speak for all open source software users, or some larger, abstract community you think is represented by the lifeless dozens you hang out with in #linuxizdeebest on freenode. I use FreeBSD. I use OpenBSD. I use OS X. I use Windows. I use NetBSD. I use Linux. I used Solaris at my old job. I am not interested in pigeon-holing myself based on mindless idealistic zealotry. Your opinions are indeed your own, so please don't lump others into some all-encompassing "we" based upon your own voluntary closed-mindedness.
For starters the Mozilla license is not compatible with GPL, yet nobody makes silly comments about Firefox not being open enough.
The license Sun is using is just a variation of the Mozilla license.
There is more to Open Source than just Linux. The whole point is we now have two serious Open Source server OS competitiors to MS.
Linux is free as in speech, but the Enterprise distros are not free as in beer. Of course other non-certified distros are free as in beer Fedora, Mandrake, Debian etc.
Solaris is free as in speech and as in beer.
Many people seem so blinded by anti-UNIX rage that they don't even notice that Sun has contributed more lines of source code to Open Source than any other company. Virtually their entire software line will run on any OS including Linux. They are totally obsessed with crossplatform compatibility - hence there obsession with Java.
I've now read their Common Developement and Distribution License (CDDL), and it seems rather complicated, complex and problematic. It is a free software license, and even some type of copyleft. But it is so wordy and uses such a complex language that it is hard to tell what it really says in some sections, and some of that could even be used to construe a workaround for the copyleftism... In addition, it contains a shitload of of special patent-related rules... All in all, it is NOT GPL compatible, and not SANity compatible to read :( They must have smoked some expensive shit when writing this...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Personally, I'm a bit disappointed with the rather meagre commenting and suspect stuff like parenthesizing return statements.
@peetm
I hope someone is looking into porting that DTrace beauty over to linux if it's possible (i.e. if it's messing around in kernel space or is using process/system info only available on Solaris it might not be possible...?)
Layers of safes? What on Earth are you talking about? Solaris is as "open" as a proprietary platform could be. The source has for a long time been only an NDA or two away.
... Linux != F/OSS
Oh, then theres SunOS and OpenOffice
Since you comment about them giving "their precious operating system" away, perhaps you should actually use it and see just how much of that OS Linux has emulated (and rather poorly in some cases, I might add).
As far as charging corporations, I think you should compare the initial cost of Solaris and Red Hat (free), and then their support fees (excercise for you). Don't like Red Hat? Have fun on random Internet forums...
The GPL v3 will have a clause dealing with patents, maybe the problem is Sun attempting to hijack the linux bandwagon?
That's reasonable, though it *will* make life easier for someone who's already breached the network perimeter.
I wouldn't choose telnet as an example for anything though, and frankly would hope it's disabled by default in any modern OS.
http://devurandom.blogspot.com/
Outside of the knee-jerk reactions on /. , the whole world should not switch overnight to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP. Sometimes, other systems are the right answer, for many complex reasons.
I agree completely.
Linux/Unix-Apache-MySQL-JSP/J2EE..
Google to "Java ISO US fail" for more details on resposability of the US representative at ISO in the Java try of ISO standard in late 1997.
;-)
.net framework. But ".net" has been bastardized by MS as they were suffixing most of their software bundle with it making people thinkg .net is ".net framework and .net platform", which is not ! As a consequence, lots of people claim today they are working with ".net" but are still doing C++ with "good"-old MFC !!!
It appears that this guy have strong link with MS : what a surprise
By the way at that time MS was a great Fan of Java but had problem with the fact they were not controling it. So they dedide to try to take the control by pushing non standard spec, and as soon as they get trouble from that, decide to build their own clone of the Java platform. So came the "cool" project now named as
Reading these threads, here are some points that I think need to be stressed:
Also, sparc systems use a bios called "openboot", which I must say puts intel-based bios' to shame.
The real reason we want open source software to be compatible with the GPL is not because we want everybody to have drunk the kool aid (okay, there are some fanatics who do want it for that reason), but for the more practical reason of wanting to be able to incorporate code from one open project not under the GPL into code from the large body of existing GPL code, either to create a new app or enhance an existing one. If Sun's license is not GPL compatible, then code from Solaris cannot be included into the Linux kernel, for example. Yes, there are a lot of kool aid fanatics, but there is a practical reason behind desiring this compatibility. (Of course, that still doesn't obligate anyone.)
This is a recurring problem, and not just with Sun's license. The original BSD and Apache licenses, the Mozilla license and many others are not GPL-compatible. OSI-certified licenses are arguably going to also be "free software" licenses as viewed by the FSF, yet the GPL still won't play nicely with others -- even those on the same side of the philosophical fence!
The design of the GPL is the problem, not the myriad OSI-certified licenses which are incompatible with the GPL. The GPL should be modified to allow GPL code to be combined with ANY free software (or at least copylefted free software) without requiring that ALL the software be distributed under the GPL itself. At one stroke, the "GPL incompatibility" problem could be solved, but only by the FSF.
I asked Richard Stallman about this once. He felt it was unnecessary to adapt the GPL to the reality of license proliferation because those other projects should just adopt the GPL instead. (This is pure hubris, of course.) However, he did admit that at least a few major licenses (like the MPL) were unlikely to go away and that it was unfortunate that GPL and MPL code cannot coexist.
He then argued that it would be inherently dangerous to modify the GPL to allow other licenses, because such a change might inadvertently open a loophole allowing proprietary software to be used with GPL software. Ignoring the fact that loopholes already exist, this is a valid concern. OSI has shown the way; particular licenses can be certified. While not foolproof, it would be much harder to sneak in a loophole in the text of a specific license (where the overall intent is probably obvious) than to craft a license designed to subvert precisely specified criteria.
Obviously, the FSF could certify free software licenses (as OSI does) and then modify the GPL to allow GPL software to be used with ANY software under an FSF-certified free software license. This places trust in the FSF to do the right thing, but so does "GPL version 2 or any later version". In fact, this very trust is the only means by which much GPL code could become more compatible with other OSS licenses.
Unfortunately, RMS dismissed this idea out of hand, mostly due to the burden of maintaining such a list and the risks of possible hidden loopholes from combining licenses.
I don't believe such a list would be very burdensome to the FSF. OSI already does all the necessary work -- the FSF could routinely wait for OSI certification before even considering a license for certification. Then the FSF's lawyers could double-check the license, but with the knowledge that others with the same goals had already examined and approved it.
Plus, there is no inherent need to certify every license -- they could just certify the high-profile ones, like old-style BSD, Apache, MPL and others where a significant codebase exists under the license.
Better yet, the certification process could provide a funding source for the FSF. For a suitably large sum of money upfront plus ongoing costs, the FSF could analyze a proposed license for certification, and work with the license author to resolve any conflicts. The FSF would keep the upfront money whether or not the license is eventually certified, and use it to fund free software development.
Companies (like Sun)
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
ObDisclaimer: IANAL
Where did you get that idea from? Yes you can mix GPL and CDDL code. Sun's License FAQ basically says so.
No, the FAQ says that files under the CDDL may be used with files under other licenses, but that those licenses might prohibit combining the code.
Look at it like this. I take your GPL code and I add some CDDL code. I modify it a bit to make it all work together happily. Then I distribute the source code on my website. What are you going to do? Sue me? You can't, I gave you the source code. GPL obligation fulfilled.
It's not that simple. If you want to mix GPL code and CDDL code in the same file, you cannot distribute the combined code under the terms of the GPL, which means that the GPL does not provide you with a copyright license for this. You would need a copyright license under an alternate license (if one exists), or need to be the copyright holder of the GPL code yourself. (The copyright holder can violate the stated license with impunity since they don't rely on the license for the authority to copy.)
You cannot combine GPL and non-GPL code in the same file with impunity, because the terms of the GPL are very strict and specific. There is no dispute that including GPL and non-GPL code in the same file creates a "derived work" under copyright law, and distributing (copying) such a derived work requires the copyright authority for the GPL code, either directly or via a license.
However, the definition of "derived work" is a legal gray area, and one that would ultimately have to be decided by the courts. Unfortunately, the answer to this question would probably vary on a case-by-case basis depending on the facts of each case -- and on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis as well, based on the precedents and laws applicable in each jurisdiction.
If you want to be safe, assume everything in the gray area is a derived work. This is the FSF's interpretation, and they will defend it, so unless you're prepared to be a test case (and possibly lose), think twice before venturing into that gray area!
The idea of "user does the link" as a method to evade the GPL was considered and discussed when GPL v1 was released. The FSF has always maintained that code written to work with GPL code is derivative of that code, making the "user does the link" scenario an attempt at evading the requirements of the license. However, this is a question of law, and the FSF's opinion isn't binding. To date, nobody seems willing to test the issue in court.
However, there is at least one precedent which suggests that the FSF's interpretation of copyright law may be too inclusive, at least in some jurisdictions. (Other jurisdictions seem to have different standards, which further confuses the matter.)
If the "Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison" test is used to determine what defines a "derived work", then code which simply uses the API of a library probably wouldn't be considered "derived" from that library, any more than using the Win32 API would give Microsoft copyright powers over Win32 applications or even Wine. Mixing and matching source files might be considered derived; it probably depends on the facts of the case.
Note that this does not apply to statically-linked binary executables -- those are unquestionably creating derived works by translating the sources and then combining them into the same file. Dynamic libraries, on the other hand, are also a gray area.
It's possible that you aren't creating a derived work by simply using the GPL code from other files, but the FSF believes you are. If you aren't, then the GPL and LGPL would be equivalent in effect. The GPL becomes moot with regard to non-derived works, which are even allowed to be aggregated on the same media. The plain text of the GPL makes this clear. But don't expect the FSF to budge on their interpretati
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
In case you missed other details in the link (http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardw a re/story/0,10801,66102,00.html), the main problem was with the IBM SRAM. Try find that fault with the newer machines and then make statements like "my confidence was shattered".
I thought the same thing when I read that a couple days ago. I'm guessing one of two things is going on. The delay is caused by:
* Sun wants to stretch out OpenSolaris' time in the spotlight. By delaying Bruce's announcement they will generate a second series of headlines. Extended exposure is alway a smart marketing move.
* Bruce is still discussing the contract details. Maybe he wants more money or more control or more fame?
Who knows? Guess we'll have to wait and see.
The only FSF approved license is the GPL.
Heck they don't even recommend the LGPL anymore. Those bastards!
The FSF's mission is to assimilate all of the other software licenses. Either you support their definition of "freedom" or you die. It is world domination of a different kind. And there can only be one!
... give us Java, you fucking morons!