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Red Hat Not Satisfied with Sun's New Java License

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the talking-coffee-related-smack dept.

twofish writes "According to a Register article Sun Microsystems' new GNU/Linux-friendly Java license does not go far enough for Red Hat. Brian Stevens, Red Hat CTO, says Sun should have open-sourced Java instead. The new license does have the support of Canonical (main Ubuntu sponsor), Gentoo and Debian." From the article: "He says the failure to open-source Java means that it can't be used on millions of $100, Linux-powered PCs envisioned under Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project, to bring affordable computing to children in developing nations. Negroponte wants only open source software on the machines, according to Red Hat, which is a member of the project."

3 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sun is a Business... by Eric+Smith · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Easy, they still hold the exclusive license this way
    If they were to GPL it, they would STILL hold the exclusive license. GPLing it doesn't give away the ownership, and it doesn't prevent the owner from also licensing it under other terms.

    The same is true of various other open source licenses.

    And in any case, that doesn't answer my question as to how it would hurt their bottom line.

  2. Re:That's kind of a cheap shot... by SnowZero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's the discussion about it on debian-legal. The new debian package for Sun's Java(tm) is intended to go into non-free, indicating they don't think it's really open source. Furthermore, it seems the debian-legal people were not consulted first, and they are not happy with the license even for a non-free package.

  3. Re:not satisfied with what? by sbrown123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I take their (Sun's) message as not a tentative step but rather a step to see when, or if, the OSS community will bite. They will also probably do something like they did with OpenOffice and make developers agree to a JCA in order to contribute code. If you are not familiar with this contract I'll summarize it for you: it legally negates the LGPL that comes with OpenOffice, prevents forking, and allows Sun to close source the codebase and claim all work as sole IP owner. People are sometimes so blinded by their hate for Microsoft that they ignore that Sun is really just a competitor that wants to be more of the same.