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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."
Linux would get DTrace, ZFS, etc. Those techs are about as cutting edge as it gets. What would Solaris get?
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
ZFS has some really awesome features. Pooling, snapshots (no, not quite like LVM), RAID-Z, and native compression and soon encryption.
I'd love to see all this in Linux but I'm thinking even if it were GPLed there would be a lot of work to do to port it. And of course after its ported, the Linux devs would probably make a big stink about accepting it using lines like "a file system should only put files on a block device!" ZFS however is a different approach to storing files and in many ways much better.
Not to mention the fact that, although it is true that Sun is gradually open sourcing all of its software, most of what Sun makes it enterprise software. What company is really going to use Sun's RFID software to run a warehouse floor, or use Sun's identity management software to manage authentication and access control for an entire enterprise, and not get a support contract from Sun? Open sourcing this type of stuff probably doesn't impact Sun's sales negatively one iota. Open sourcing Java may be riskier, but I'm curious to see how it really pans out.
Breakfast served all day!
BSD licence? Hello? I don't think Sun prefers a license where everyone (MS) can copy stuff from Solaris into their proprietary products without giving anything back. BSD license may have its place, but this is not it.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
a host of filesystems, maybe? truckloads of drivers?