Sun to Add GPLv3 to OpenSolaris?

An anonymous reader writes to mention that sources inside Sun Microsystems claim that OpenSolaris may see the GPLv3 added to its list of licenses soon. From the article: "While Sun officials would not confirm the plan to dual-license OpenSolaris under the CDDL and GPLv3, Tom Goguen, vice president of Solaris software at Sun, told eWEEK that other open-source technologies will play a big role in Solaris going forward. 'Take the GNU Userland, which is an interesting piece of technology that Sun is looking at closely, and we may do something similar with, say, a container flavor,' he said. 'You can also expect to see a renewed focus on the needs of developers and system administrators with Solaris going forward, while individual pieces of the next version will also likely be increasingly delivered first as components or technologies targeted at vertical markets,' he said."

Comments

Release it under all of them.

[Threni]

Just for a laugh. I mean, they're not mutually exclusive, are they?

Re:Release it under all of them.

[jonbryce]

And even if they were, it doesn't stop Sun, as the copyright holder, from releasing it under whatever licence they want.

Good Strategic Move

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Releasing OpenSolaris under GPLv3 might be a good strategic move. Right now GPLv3 is in limbo, with some projects moving to it and some not. The main purpose of GPLv3 is to try to stop submarine patents from the industry in general, but Microsoft in particular, from being used to undermine the process. So imagine Suse using GPLv2 competing against some other distro like RedHat, or Ubuntu, which has moved to GPLv3 for the code they contribute. They get the added value of swapping code with OpenSolaris, which has some really cool stuff and Sun gets the benefit of undermining MS's new strategy, which of course is as detrimental to Sun as anyone else, by making Suse Linux an outdated distro.

Re:Good Strategic Move

[a.d.trick]

Can you please cite some examples of Microsoft using submarine patents.

It's not so much that they actually go out and sue people over patents. Rather, they use a technique known as FUD and they go around and intimidate their competitors about how they might use their patents. The competitors then have to scramble all about to save their stock from falling into oblivion and spend effort ensuring they are not in violation of some patent they don't know about. Whether there's anything to Microsoft's patent claims remains to be demonstrated.

In other news...

[WED Fan]

Stallman Takes Control of Sun

Two minutes after applying GPL3 to OpenSolaris, Richard M. Stallman, pseudoprophet of the New Religion, exercising a deeply buried clause in GPL3, took control of the company.

"My version of reality, trumps yours," he stated, "And my version of Freedom is better for you, so, we have deprecated all other forms of freedom. The sooner you learn to accept that, the sooner we release you from your bonds. Now take your medicine."

President-For-Life of Cuba, Fidel "I'm-still-alive-dammit-don't-unplug-that" Castro called to congratulate the new CEO.

That might cause a real shift in momentum

[starseeker]

Consider the following points:

1. Most software that creates the userland for desktop users can run on Solaris as well as Linux, in the sense of using the kernels.

2. Businesses, which value stability, have watched the Linux kernel abandon the odd-even numbering system in favor of merging major changes into the 2.6 tree (I know there are pros and cons for this, but my money is on this not being a positive move in most commercial business eyes.)

3. The major lack for Solaris, from the user standpoint at least, is the driver support Linux now enjoys - if Solaris supported all the hardware Linux does and had a good/friendly install routine (haven't tried it myself), there would be little to choose between Linux and Solaris.

Now, how could GPLv3 help?

It's true the Linux kernel code, as such, could not be merged straight into Solaris. HOWEVER, key authors of the parts of Linux that actually are better could be contacted and asked if they would license their code for use in Solaris under GPLv3. The CDDL has not, so far, encouraged much of this activity as far as I know. GPL has "street cred" in terms of the open source population, and the key authors of the key parts unique to Linux might be convinced to help Solaris (which has its own bits of Truly Awesome Code).

Many of the arguments are similar to using GPL for Java. Solaris is already freely available and as such is not a direct revenue stream for Sun - the question is how to use it to Make Money in other venues. Now there are risks as well as rewards to being able to run Solaris on a wide variety of hardware, and Sun must make the calculation as to whether universal standardization/use of Solaris would promote their hardware as a very stable, powerful integrated core of a complete Solaris solution. This is not immediately clear, but is possible. Certainly, it would increase Sun's "visibility" in the marketplace, if they displace Linux as the major open source operating system. (I know, I know - the userland tools are what count most, but marketing doesn't seem to work that way.)

Another interesting question is whether the corporations who have made contributions to Linux in order to make it more usable for them might be inclined to work with Sun and Solaris if it becomes available under GPLv3. Corporations seem to be more comfortable working with other corporate entities, and GPL is a good "safeguard" against being taken to the cleaners.

I hope Sun does release a functioning Solaris under GPLv3, with the key parts (dtrace, ZFS, etc) included. I would certainly be interested in such a system, particularly if the key developers cooperate and the major Linux Goodies can be folded into it.

Interesting times.

Response from Sun VP

[acoopersmith]

A non-anonymous source inside Sun, who just happens to be Sun's VP of Software, has refuted eWeek's rumor spreading.