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Sun Considers dual-sourcing Solaris Under GPL3
foorilious writes "In his blog, Sun Microsystem's President and COO Jonathan Schwartz discusses the possibility of dual-licensing Solaris (and perhaps the rest of their software suite) under GPLv3, in addition to the CDDL, which is the OSI-approved license under which these products are already available, but generally considered to be incompatible with the GPL at some level.
Though this could mean an opening of the floodgates to a lot of sharing between Linux and Solaris (among other things), it's worth mentioning that Schwartz has speculated on exciting things in the past (such as porting Solaris to IBM's Power) that we subsequently never heard another thing about."
I thought Linux wasn't going to go for GPL3, so how exactly would that sharing work?
Jerry
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Though this could mean an opening of the floodgates to a lot of sharing between Linux and Solaris
Linus already said that Linux is not now, and will not in the near future, be released under GPLv3. And since GPLv3 is not reverse compatible with GPLv2 (it has more restrictions), this won't happen.
One of the least discussed but largest changes in GPL3 is the explicit mention of patents and how patents (if found to be violated) would effect the work as a whole. This is similar to the IBM Public License and is one of those things that I'd imagine would give a corporate lawyer warm fuzzies. Sun and others may find this change so compelling that they'd be willing to give more attention to the GPL3 than the GPL2, which strengthens it further (since these companies want the flow of information to go both).
- Linux zealots abandon their "everything about Solaris sucks and I'll never use it" dogma, or
- Mac zealots abandon their "Intel processors suck and I'll never use one" dogma?
The Mac people are taking an early lead, but anything can happen.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
...it's worth mentioning that Schwartz has speculated on exciting things in the past (such as porting Solaris to IBM's Power) that we subsequently never heard another thing about.
You can find out if you just use the Schwartz - trust your feelings, let go.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Anyone doing any kind of scientific computing, which is a large portion of their customer base. They have been losing that customer base to Linux, which hurts their sales in more ways than one.
You might also care about Solaris if you want to use any of their excellent hardware. If they GPL'd Solaris, no only could you use it without practical and moral problems, you could also do a much better job of porting other free software.
GPL'd Solaris would be a great gift. Don't look it too hard in the mouth.
GPL Java, for crying out loud.
The magic of cross licensing may prevent that. If Sun GPL's Solaris, you can be sure they will do everything in their power to get a free Java out.
Take what it gives and make what it won't.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Please note people: This is a company. That means they make money. And they do it in the classic sense which means this type of company usually gets the creeps when hearing stuff like "go FOSS" or "rely on FOSS". CEOs freak out regularly when these terms come up.
If SUN plans an OSS strategy they are certainly NOT going to GPL their powerhorse Java. Solaris is nearly just as impressive from a technical standpoint. It's probably that Solaris doesn't have the numbers attached to it SUN would like to see. So they probably guess it could prove itself as OSS, since Linux is winning in the custom Unix market at all fronts.
If x86 Solaris would go GPL that would be really cool. I'd actually give it a try.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
But maybe we don't want the most open and least restrictive. Because if we did, we'd all be using BSD. Which is the least restrictive license I know of. I think what a lot of GPL users want is for their code to stay GPL, and for changes made to the code by others to be brought back upstream, so the whole community can take advantage of the changes. I think that's what GPL V3 is trying to accomplish.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
GNU = GNU is Now Unix
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The reason Linus turned down GPLv3 is that it required giving the copyright and permission available from all contributors. Linus wants to keep it trademarked under his name and the task is impossible to track everyone down for approval with GPLv3.
http://saveie6.com/
I read in a few /. posts that Solaris is likely the best 64bit OS available. On other sites I've read Solaris referred to as Slowiris when run on a single CPU, but the Sun site suggests Solaris is no slower than Linux on a single CPU machine.
:-/
You have to be careful here. Solaris used to be called Slowaris when run on Intel machines, because it was designed for much more powerful hardware. A lot of features that are hardware supported on a SPARC machine had to be reimplemented in software on Intel machines.
Another common vector for the "Slowaris" comments is the early days of the Sun framebuffers. Sun was one of the first vendors to do away with text mode all together, and emulate it entirely in software. The upshot is that Solaris SPARC machines have the best looking, smooth font, conole you will ever see. The downside is that the 100 MHz beasties that started this practice had a bit of trouble keeping up with the needs of the console rendering.
Neither of these issues has been significant for a very long time. I haven't heard anyone call the OS "Slowaris" in almost a decade. The complaint I hear today is that Solaris is unwieldy and not at all designed with user-friendly setup. Sun keeps trying to fix this with new, prettier installers. I don't think they have a clue though, because the first thing I have to do every time I install the OS is go into the config files and setup the DNS server and default gateway. You'd think it would kill them to ask this info during an install.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The Linux kernel probably won't ever be GPL3, because the license it uses doesn't contain the forward-compatibility clause that the FSF's software does; however, all the GNU utilities (including, I believe, GCC) will be GPL3 and/or GPL2, because they have the forward-looking clause.
So really what it would allow a person to do, is produce a GNU/Solaris as opposed to GNU/Linux -- an OS that would have the Solaris kernel, wrapped in the GNU utilities, without the Linux kernel. I'm not sure if anyone would really want that, because I'm not sure that it would be compatibile with either existing Solaris or existing Linux software without rewriting, and it generally seems to be a solution looking for a problem (not unlike GNU/Hurd).
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