Sun Grants Access to 1,600+ Patents

Insane_zoD writes "Looks like Sun is attempting to keep up with IBM in opening up patents for FOSS-based projects. From the news release: 'By giving open source developers free access to Sun OpenSolaris related patents under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), the company is fostering open innovation and establishing a leadership role in the framework of a patent commons that will be recognized across the globe.'"

Comments

Cool

[gowen]

Does this mean Linux Vendors can now charge their clients a per-seat licensing fee? (which as we all know is a revolutionary invention in software licensing, owned exclusively by Sun).

The important question...

[term8or]

Is whether the license gives developers in OS products a perpetual right to use the patent, or could sun take the rights away at some point stopping projects that rely on them from producing new releases?

Not as good as IBM

[borgheron]

Sun, according to thier license, reserves the right to sue if the software is released under another license. :)

IBM opened the 500 patents it opened without restriction.

GJC

Patents can be enforced against Linux

[Bruce Perens]

I confirmed with Sun's PR person for this release (at Byte Communications), that the patents are only for use with software under the CDDL license and the OpenSolaris process. The patents can be enforced against GPL software, including Linux. In contrast, the IBM grant was for any OSI-accepted license.

Bruce

Re:Patents can be enforced against Linux

[Bruce Perens]

The FSF was there first. It's the job of those who come later to be compatible with what already exists. But you are wrong about not being able to combine GPL and BSD works. GPL software and BSD software can be integrated together. The licenses are compatible with each other and the resulting larger work will be under the GPL. CDDL and GPL work can't be integrated that way. Their terms are not compatible.

Bruce

Re:Where is the license?

[Raphael]

Depends, though. Does the CDDL allow for re-licensing?

Have a look at the CDDL. In section 3.1, it says:

"Any Covered Software that You distribute or otherwise make available in Executable form must also be made available in Source Code form and that Source Code form must be distributed only under the terms of this License. [...]"

In addition, section 3.4 adds:

"You may not offer or impose any terms on any Covered Software in Source Code form that alters or restricts the applicable version of this License or the recipients' rights hereunder.[...]

In other words, this license is incompatible with the GPL (probably on purpose). As a result, you cannot use any CDDL-licensed code in a GPL-licensed program and you cannot use any GPLed code in a CDDLed program. Both licenses are "viral" and they are mutually incompatible.

So you cannot use any CDDLed code in Linux.

Re:Where is the license?

[Raphael]

There is one thing that I forgot to mention in my previous comment: the CDDL is derived from the Mozilla Public Licence (MPL) 1.1 but at the end of the Detailed description of changes from the MPL, you find this:

Deleted Section 13 of the MPL because it was confusing and unnecessary.

Section 13 of the MPL, titled "Multiple Licensed Code", allows the code to be licensed under the MPL or an alternative license described in Exhibit A (also deleted from the CDDL). For Mozilla, section 13 allows any derived code to be licensed under the MPL or GPL. Sun has removed this section from the CDDL. You can see it at the end of the Redline diffs between MPL1.1 and CDDL (PDF file).

So any code released under the CDDL is definitely incompatible with the GPL. There is also no way to fix that (except if Sun re-released the code under a better license) because Sun has also removed the statements that allowed the code to be used under a "future version of this License" from section 3.1 and section 6 (now 4 in the CDDL).