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

That would be awesome!

[RLiegh]

Sorry for the fanboyish response, but I think releaseing various parts of Open Solaris under the GNU license would lead to some great developments. As I understand it, that would enable a lot of features of the Solaris kernel to be imported into Linux and vice-versa.

Of course, there'd be a problem with that whole "gnu's NOT unix" thing... ;)

Excellent

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This could be a bigger boon than a lot of people realize. The licensing differences between Solaris and Linux are one of several factors slowing them from adopting ideas and code from one another. OpenSolaris users could benefit from ease of importing more cutting edge features from Linux. Linux could benefit by having access to some of the cleaner implementation ideas from Solaris. I've felt for some time that much of what holds linux back is the unwillingness to adopt newer and better features out of a fear that a given distribution will be less compatible with others and because Linux is trying to wear many hats. Too many decisions are made to benefit its use as a server or make it easier to use on a portable, while leaving it behind others for a workstation.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Re:Excellent

[jericho4.0]

"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?

Re:Excellent

[obi]

a host of filesystems, maybe? truckloads of drivers?

Re:Money Pressure

[morgan_greywolf]

Remember, SUN makes money on hardware.
Novell and Microsoft do not.

Yep. Microsoft doesn't make any money from hardware sales at all. No siree. Not a dime. And Novell never made anything from hardware sales either.

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."

Re:ZFS

[EvilRyry]

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.

Re:BSD License

[Knuckles]

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.

Re:GPL DTrace for teh win!

[[tsa]]

Hm...

When you can get an open-sourced carrier-grade OS like (Open)Solaris at no cost,
why still Linux?

OpenSolaris surely currently lacks a lot of (x86) hardware support, no drivers
for widespread hardware, etc. - but as more and more users actively use and
support OpenSolaris, more and more vendors will provide those.

What I don't like about Linux - Linux (and a lot of Linux software), that is - is
the neverending story of changing APIs - use something, update something else - Oops.

I have a Linux system here, with at least three different versions of, e.g., BerkeleyDB.
1.85 compat, 3.something, 4.idontknow. API changes, incompatibilities, you name it.

Ever tried to compile popular Linux software on another Un*x? Whenever I encounter some
piece of GPL-licensed software, I can almost guarantee it won't compile on Solaris, Tru64, .. - without spending hours for #ifdef'ing and patching the source.

You want DTrace? Zones? Use Solaris. Is there any technical reason (no politics, please) where
using Linux actually offers any benefit?

(Yes, "smc" and all those java-based admin utilities suck. But commandline-based alternatives
do exist.)

This is not a flamebait. Serious answers will be appreciated.