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Sun Considering GPL For OpenSolaris

Posted by kdawson on from the it's-spreading dept.

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."

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Excellent by jericho4.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "OpenSolaris users could benefit from ease of importing more cutting edge features from Linux."

    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
  2. Re:ZFS by EvilRyry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:BSD License by Knuckles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  4. Re:Excellent by obi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a host of filesystems, maybe? truckloads of drivers?