Slashdot Mirror
Torvalds vs Schwartz GPL Wars
javipas writes "The controversial message published by Linus Torvalds (mirrored) in the Linux Kernel Mailing List was from the beginning to the end an open attack to Sun and its Open Source strategy. Linus criticized Sun's real position on GPL, and claimed that Linux could be dangerous to Sun. Upon his words, "they may be talking a lot more [about Open Source] than they are or ever will be doing." Jonathan Schwartz's blog has been updated today with a post that is a direct response to Linus claims, but in a much more elegant and coherent way. Sun's CEO notes that "Companies compete, communities simply fracture", and tries to explain why using GPL licenses is taking so long."
There is nothing like media pitting two public figures against one another and, consequently, pitting supporters and detractors against each other, in order to generate some cheap polemic to exploit for some 15 minutes. Nothing to see here, move along.
Sun are the proverbial me-too, camp follower company.
They don't firmly commit to anything, but merely spend a certain amount of time chasing whichever particular ambulance they think is hot with their customer base at a given moment. When the wind changes, they go off in a different direction.
The controversial summary sent by "javipas" to Slashdot was from the beginning to the end an open attack on Linus Torvalds and his "real" opinion posted to a mailing list . . .
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
It's working together, not working against each other. The F/OSS community is HUGE, but wasting resources is always silly. As Schwartz put it: "Let's stop wasting time recreating wheels we both need to roll forward."
Very nice attitude.
Unfortunately, due to his position, his personal opinion counts for too much. He needs to be more careful posting incendiary comments like this, because the public at large interprets his comments as the position of the rest of the Linux (and dare I say, open source) community. It does not help that his comments are so obviously not well thought out. At least think it through before inserting your foot squarely in your mouth.
I agree ... kudos to Sun as long as they actually do release everything GPLv3! If that happens then Sun have a winner on their hands for people that want Free software that can't be taken advantage of by manoeuverings like the Novell/Microsoft deal. Coupled with a Free java that makes for a much more appealing platform than a GPLv2 GNU/Linux. I'm sure that Linus is aware of that, and indeed his position has softened from complete hostility to GPLv3 to trying to negotiate with the hated FSF.
To paraphrase: "Am I cynical? Yes. Do I expect people to act in their own interests? Hell yes! That's how things are _supposed_ to happen. I'm not at all berating Linus, what I'm trying to do here is to wake people up who seem to be living in some dream-world where Linus wants to help people.
Oh, I do think Linus wants to help people, it's just that he's a very practical kind of person, and isn't motivated by the same things as either the FSF or a company. And perhaps isn't all that impressed by either (;-))
I suspect he's going to be impressed if and only if FSF release a clean GPLv3 and Sun releases an GPL'd Solaris. Those would make it far more practical for he and the Solarii to compete in the area which I consider most important: code quality.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
It remains to see who participates and the nature of the co-operation. Sun contributing Java, even for cynical reasons, says more about Open Source as an evolving business model than a fracturing community.
And so what if it fractures anyway, maybe that makes software evolve in a more "natural" way.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's a trap!
To my mind, the relationship between Sun and Open Source has always been coloured by Sun's Big Thing: Java.
As a development platform, Java only had one new thing to offer. Perl, Python, PHP, C et al. are "write once, run anywhere" languages, as long as you publish the source. Sun's contribution is a language that supports "write once, run anywhere" without publishing the source.
In other words, Sun's most interesting contribution to the software industry is a powerful (if painful to use) tool for distributing proprietary closed source applications.
I keep wondering whether they just stumbled into this or whether it was a strategic move. In either case, it's hardly a testimonial to Sun's support of Open Source.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I really don't see what's so controversial about that message from Linus.
- Sun says it'll do A
- Linus says that based on Sun history he is sceptical that they will actually do A, and thinks that they say A but will do something like it, but not completely
- Then he says he thinks Sun should be commended for the things they did.
That's not a war. That is just an opinion that isn't even remotely controversial.
And then someone replies...
If they were really interested in seeing ZFS everywhere, why did they release it in a license incompatible with the GPL license?
Companies compete.
Communities EVOLVE.
Actually, if anything Linux does a better job of supporting hardware for me than Windows does most of the time. Even my 'Windows Only' Wacom tablet. And I don't know when the last time you looked at linux was... but it might be worth having another look..
What? What the hell are you talking about?
"runs the same speed" regardless of "load"? Could you please use some technical terms here? x86 instructions complete in a given number of cycles (barring branch misprediction, to which SPARC is not immune) so intel/AMD chips also always run at the same speed (barring throttling.)
Well, that's fair - so has everyone else. (Some people are simply willing to overlook them)
*cough*bullshit*cough* As a newborn Sun employee, Murdock is thinking about making Solaris more Linux-like. "When people say Linux what do they mean? Linux is a kernel. Cool apps are not written to the kernel. The OS powers higher levels of the stack. What we want is an open OS platform and to make sure that the existing skill sets and knowledge and training investments are leveraged. We don't want to make them learn a new product or rip and replace," Murdock said. "You can make a real argument that Solaris innovated more than Linux in the last few years--such as DTrace and ZFS--but usability stands in the way of appreciating that," Murdock said. "Part of what we are working on is closing the usability gap so that it doesn't stand in the way." (next para, emphasis mine:) "There is no reason we can't make Solaris look and feel more like Linux," he continued. "There are a couple of ways we could do it. We could stick a penguin on it or take a Linux distribution and put a Solaris kernel in it. There are a few Solaris-based distros that have done that. Personally, as the person charting the course and looking at the strategy question, it becomes how to keep the competitive differentiation of Solaris while closing the usability gap."
Perhaps you should try to be informed before you attempt to refute my statements? Especially since you're wrong.
Also, it's worth noting that there's Sun SPARC-based hardware that OpenSolaris doesn't run on, because Sun won't give out sufficient specifications. Theo's way of putting it was "Sun released CPU docs, but that's useless. It is kind of like trying to fix a car engine with the owner's manual. The rest of the hardware is not documented."
Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He had sent patches for over a week of GNOME, which needed to be patched. That proved his idea.
What does he plan now? just an E-Mail? what about something creative like last time?
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
Certainly, re-licensing a significant code base with lots of contributors is not trivial; it is a good point, if one Linus is pretty obviously already aware of. But Linus' point is that historically, announcements from Sun about the great things their going to contribute to the open source community significantly outstrip the amount of great things that have eventually become available for inclusion in GPL(2) licensed projects like the Linux kernel. This is not a point that can be convincingly countered with a blog post explaining why things are still coming in the future, no matter how good the reasons.
Thank you for your answer. I think we are in the same page, as to what will happen if Sun releases ZFS under GPLv3. Minor nitpick: when I said Sun would be "forfeiting" the patents, I was just thinking about Sun losing that advantage over Linux, their main competitor. You know, what you referred to as the "main differentiator" (which btw I think it's a bit of an overstatement of the benefits of ZFS, but that's beside the point).
Right. But that's no different than the CDDL. Right now, to use ZFS you have to be able to glue a chunk of CDDL code into your project. Linux can't use it because of the GPL (any version). Shouldn't we, by your reasoning, say that that's Linus' fault for choosing the GPL instead of something else?
Anyway, my point is, it was Sun who chose to license it in a way that Linux couldn't touch it. And if they release it under GPLv3 (big if, IMO), that will also be Sun's choice. Now, you may take the charitative view and say that they had to do it that way, or that being incompatible with Linux is an unfortunate, unintended consequence. Me? Well... I guess I've just become too cynical in my old age.
Well, that's your perception. The short-sighted mistake, I mean. To me, it was a sensible choice. If you care about how people use your code, then you don't leave a backdoor for third parties to relicense your code as they see fit. Not even the FSF.
In fact, and this will sound trollish, and I do apologise for that, but after reading the GPLv3, particularly the early drafts, I have to qualify: especially not the FSF.
Oh and btw, I think BK was also a sensible choice at the time. And the offspring of that "fiasco", namely git, more than compensates for everything. IMO of course.
I'm really sorry for being difficult, but no, I would not agree. C'mon, I keep reading GPLv3 advocates saying as much: GPLv2 is not going anywhere, you are as free to use it as you are to choose GPLv3. Now, regardless of how things got the way they are, or whose "fault" was it, Linux is GPLv2, and it doesn't seem likely that that will change anytime soon. Sun can choose GPLv2 if they want. In fact, I think there's a good chance they'll do precisely that, just so they can use the drivers.
I just read notamisfit's reply to my post. He's right, BSD is pretty much free to use it under the CDDL, as is that guy doing the FUSE port. My mistake.
But you're right too, if Sun does that, Linux will not benefit. In fact, unless Sun allows GPLv2, Linux is pretty much out of luck, and the patents ensure that it will stay out of luck. Another unintended consequence, perhaps.