Sun Considering GPL For OpenSolaris

narramissic writes, "At an event today to formally open-source Java, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and CEO, and Rich Green, the company's senior VP of software had an exchange in which Schwartz put Green on the spot about using GPL for OpenSolaris: 'Are you averse to changing the license, Rich Green?' Schwartz asked. 'Certainly not,' Green responded, prompting the Sun CEO to fire back in a half-joking manner: 'Will you GPL Solaris, Mr. Green?' 'We will take a close look at it,' Green said, adding that it was possible that the familiarity and comfort level many developers have with the GPL may result in Sun adopting it for OpenSolaris." Another note about Sun's decision to use the GPL for Java comes from reader squiggleslash, who writes: "According to Jonathan Schwartz, the decision of Novell and Microsoft to '(suggest) that free and open source software wasn't safe unless a royalty was being paid' is what prompted Sun to finally come down on using the GPL for Java. So I guess every cloud has a silver lining."

Comments

Re:Money Pressure

[DAldredge]

Other than their keyboard and mouse operations all Microsoft hardware operations operate in the red.

More cool stuff in Solaris?

[Kadin2048]

This is just my understanding, but Darwin doesn't have nearly as many 'interesting' features that don't already exist in Linux. There is some neat Solaris-only stuff that people have wanted to bring into Linux for a while, but have not been able to because of licensing problems, and the work it would take to clean-room it.

The thing that I always hear talk about is dtrace (currently CDL, and tightly integrated with the Solaris kernel), but looking at the WP article on it, apparently it's been partially brought over to BSD and OS X. Then there are also containers and that "self-healing" fault-isolation system, which I don't pretend to understand.

Perhaps there are just as many cool, compelling features in Darwin that aren't talked about, and deserve being shared with Linux and other OSes ... but I've definitely not heard as much 'buzz' about them as you hear about some particular features of Solaris that are supposedly very neat.

Re:Another dumb move

[xzvf]

Sun does two things well. Rock solid hardware and excellent service. GPLing Solaris and Java allows them to limit resources spend on software development. In addition, GPL compatible Solaris and Linux will blur the lines between the OS as they adopt each other's best features. Linux and Solaris might become binary compatible. Sun can focus on selling hardware and services.

Which *version* of the GPL

[YA_Python_dev]

More interesting than this, IMHO, is to note that for Java they choose to use the "GNU GPL v2 only" (plus Classpath exception) license, not the more common "GPL v2 or any later version".

This is what the Java FAQ says about it:

Q: What about GPL v3? Have you considered using that license?
A: While Sun has been working with the Free Software Foundation as an active participant in the development and review of the GPL v3 license, this license is not yet complete. It is Sun's strong desire to complete the open sourcing of its Java technology implementations in a timely manner, so we made the decision to use an existing, established license paradigm rather than wait for GPL v3 to be completed. Using GPL v2 does not indicate anything negative about GPL v3. Sun continues to be very actively and positively involved in this new license's development.

And, from this InfoQ article about the GPLed Java:

GPLv3 was not chosen since it is not finished yet, but when asked if Sun will move to GPLv3 an official said "at this point we don't know what the final license will be."