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CDDL Project Leader on the CDDL
SunFan writes "Claire Giordano, Sun's lead on CDDL development, gives the inside story on how the new license was developed. She discusses how people within Sun debated the various licenses, including the GPL, and shows why the GPL, BSD, and MPL licenses were found to come up short in meeting the needs of Sun's broad customer and developer base."
This comment has been licensed under the personal slashdot creative commons license: THIS COMMENT COMES WITHOUT WARRENTY OF ANY KIND......
I hereby create some new licenses for your using pleasure!
The Don't Use Me (DUM) License: By using this license, you simply must smash your skull in with a hammer until you have an IQ in the single digits.
The RRAL Recursive Acronym License: By using this license, you agree all your future projects will use Recursive Acronyms, no matter how stupid or forced.
The KILL ALL HUMANS license: By using this, you agree to waive all liability of the maker in the case that it kills you violently. You also agree to bite any asses which are both shiny and metal.
The FREAKIN' SWEET license: By using this, you agree the maker of the software is freakin' sweet. Any thoughts to the contrary, and you will be killed in the coming plans of world domination.
And I'm spent!
Hate playing the devil's advocate, but their license is Open, it just isn't Free. It meets the OSI requirements, which means OSI approval means less to me than once it did.
There's a reason for that, as described in TFA... as you mentioned, wherever possible, it's always easier to use someone else's code than to write some more of your own. The same goes in the proprietrary world, except that instead of all using one license (GPL/BSD/whatever), each bit of code will come attached with its own separate license.
All the other proprietrary to open source projects would have started out with significant sections of proprietrary code owned by other groups, which could not be licensed by the GPL. Over time, these sections of code get replaced by open source code. Eventually, separate licenses are no longer a barrier, and it becomes possible to use the GPL for the whole project.
However, after the project is initially released open source, there is a very real reason why the GPL cannot be used.
-- Dramatisation - May Not Have Happened
There are a lot of threads about the issue of GPL incompatability. But not including that the author of the article mentions that he wants the CDDL to become a license in line with the GPL or the BSD license. The problem is:
1) Its not as simple as the BSD license thus manages to duck the hard issues
2) Its not as well thought out as the GPL which addresses the hard issues dead on.
1) CDDL definition of source code: "Source Code" means (a) the common form of computer software code in which modifications are made and
(b) associated documentation included in or with such code.
GPL definition of source code: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
What does documentation included with such code mean? Say for examples most changes are made in response to bug tickets do you need to include them? Very vague
2) Obligation to distribute source
CDDL - 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.... You must inform recipients of any such Covered Software in Executable form as to how they
can obtain such Covered Software in Source Code form in a reasonable manner on or through a medium customarily used
for software exchange.
GPL -- Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
You can see the differences.
-- How long do you have to provide source code
-- What about casual copying
-- What if the information in the executable is no longer true (like you can download this code from www.xyz.com/abc/bcd)?
etc...
3) CDDL on "modifications" -- The Modifications that You create or to which You contribute are governed by the terms of this License. You represent that You believe Your Modifications are Your original creation(s) and/or You have sufficient rights to
grant the rights conveyed by this License.
GPL on derived works -- Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program),
The GPL uses the notion of derived work which has tons of case law behind it. The CDDL uses "modifications" which opens the door to which sorts of derivations are modifications. I don't see any point in this change.
Anyway I'm not sure what the CDDL offers over the GPL other than lots of chat about patent claims.
The CDDL was mentioned on an earlier slashdot article: Sun's Schwartz Attacks GPL.
The gist of what he had to say: "GPL sucks! CDDL rulez!"
IBM isn't open sourcing AIX, or trying to.
That's probably because they can't. Sun started working on OpenSolaris five years ago, building upon the big UNIX license they got back in the early 90s.
Sure they ride the linux wave for corporate profit, but they put alot of cash into building that wave too.
Sun is doing the exact same thing with many (even GPL) projects. Sun pays people to work on OpenOffice.org. They do the same for GNOME. Sun even supports their middleware stack on Linux. Rumor has it they'll open source their middleware, too.
Their motives are different.
Red Hat and IBM are publically trade for-profit companies. Their motives are all the same. Why else would Red Hat go the RHEL/Fedora route? Also, Solaris has always been there, and Sun is only improving it (they certainly aren't taking anything away).
I don't see a double standard at all.
Really? You don't see all the different definitions of 'freedom' flying around? The slanted importance placed on 'GPL compatibility'? Those are some pretty impressive blinders.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
No sense defining that in the submission. That would be too much like actual reporting.
Assuming you are referring to my blog entry discussing the way that the success, not failure, of MPL-style licenses is at the root of the license proliferation problem, I'm afraid I don't agree with you. LGPL does not include the explicit patent grant that the MPL includes, nor does it establish ground rules for maintaining a patent peace, and thus does not serve as the archetype for MPL licenses and their (many) derivatives. Instead it includes an exception to the scope of the GPL which depends on the language and architecture of the software in use and makes assumptions on how dynamic linking will take place. In all other respects it is the same as my third license category, GPL licenses.
If you looked at the links on the left hand side of the page, you'd see a button called Roadmap, which points here:
http://www.opensolaris.org/roadmap/index.html
Second quarter, 2005 is when the source will be available for the core OS (non-essential stuff will be released sometime later). It's the beginning of the second quarter now, so sometime between now and the end of June the source will be up.
-i
Nope. You're the confused one here. Take a look at their site again.
To quote the FSF faq:
Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they form a single larger program. If either part is covered by the GPL, the whole combination must also be released under the GPL--if you can't, or won't, do that, you may not combine them.
So your theory just got busted.