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HP Calls For Sun and IBM to Remove OS Licenses

Posted by Zonk on from the cow-for-free dept.

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that in order to help nudge Linux and open source software further into the enterprise, a vice president at Hewlett-Packard Co yesterday called on rivals IBM Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc to invalidate their open-source software licenses in favor of a free licensing model. During his keynote at the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco yesterday, HP's vice president of open source and NonStop Enterprise Martin Fink commended the Open Source Initiative on setting up new rules to limit the growth of open-source licenses." From the article: "He asked IBM to deprecate its open-source license and instead put it under the General Public License, the most popular license for free software that gives users the freedom run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to modify and improve it and distribute copies. In contrast, an open-source license, like IBM's, is copyrighted. Fink also called on Sun Microsystems to deprecate its Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which applies to OpenSolaris, GlassFish and JWSDP, and to re-license Solaris 10 under the General Public License, which drew the crowd's applause."

3 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. GPL is Copyrighted too by ikegami · · Score: 5, Informative
    In contrast [to GPL], an open-source license, like IBM's, is copyrighted.

    In contrast? The GPL and works released undef GPL are Copyrighted too. GPL doesn't work without Copyright.

    1. Re:GPL is Copyrighted too by justins · · Score: 4, Informative
      It does, actually. The derived versions must not carry the "GPL" name, though. It's a similar situation for FireFox, with it's trademark license. Basically, that phrase is there to ensure branding. Otherwise, I could create and release a different "GPL" that could effectively lock people out of some of their rights.

      Every item asserted by the above paragraph is untrue. Just an FYI for the casual reader.
      --
      Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
  2. Re:Pot calling Kettle... by Ngwenya · · Score: 4, Informative
    ObDisc: I work for HP, speaking here in a personal capacity, blah, blah, blah...

    They have some nerve telling other companies to give out free licencing.


    Be fair. Martin was simply saying that if IBM/Sun/HP/whoever is going to release software under a free license, then it would be preferable to release under a single, well known license - the GPL. HP's techies and lawyers tend to agree (in as much as techies ever agree about anything) that the GPL is the best way to give stuff to the free software community while protecting HP's intellectual investments. In other words, it will only give away stuff in the knowledge that some leech won't just take it and make the code non-free. And HP has released a lot of code under the GPL.

    So he wasn't saying that Sun should open up everything including Java, or that IBM should free up AIX/Tivoli/etc or such things: just that the proliferation of licenses adds to market confusion.

    Lastly, HP can't just open up HP-UX without a huge amount of work; there is code in there which is licensed under arrangements incompatible with the GPL. Case in point: HP licenses the SVR4 codebase, and I believe there is some ongoing litigation involving the contract conditions around that. Can't quite remember the company's name...

    Scoff? Scold? Squelch?

    --Ng