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Jini and the Sun Community Source License (SCSL)
Julien Flack writes "JavaWorld has an interesting article on the Jini
Community and its approach to open source.
The Sun Community Source License (SCSL) "is an
amalgam of open source principles and for-profit
licensing models of the past." according to this
article, which claims SCSL is in the spirit of
ESR' Bazaar. "
If you follow ESR's Open Source principles and purely economic arguments, licenses like this seem to have all the benefits of Open Source, and none of the disadvantages. That's where Richard Stallman's free software movement comes in. It does argue based on surface arguments of eceonomics. It argues based on principles of freedom, openness, and to large extent, on what users want. Licenses like this clearly do not hold up with Richard's arguments. ESR has been an incredibly effective Open Source advocate. As such, most of the newcomers into the movement (including Sun) only understand Open Source, and not free software.
Partially for that reason, Richard (and most of the other original free software programmers and advocates) don't like Open Source, but prefer free software.
If you are Bill G., do you know how to buy Linux? Buy RMS!
Interestingly, the very trait so many find irritating in RMS is the one that will make sure that doesn't happen. Some call him fanatic, I call him singularly determined.
>The very first thing I noticed is that it's much,
>much more difficult for a layman to read and >understand than the GNU GPL is.
Believe me, the GPL isn't easy for lawyers, either. For that matter, I'm not yet convinced (as a laywer) that it does what it thinks it does, or says it does, or that it is claimed it does; I'm not sure how much these intersect, either.
>Now, everyone reading Slashdot knows how much
>controversy, confusion and debate the GPL has >spawned -- imagine how much worse it would be if
>the GPL had been written in this incomprehensible >style.
Had the GPL been written in standard legalese, we wouldn't have these problems . . .
hawk, esq.
Funny that - 21,000 paying developers at this year's JavaOne expo. Quite a cold reception.
What's the problem with session ID's, again?
Since you (or your predecessors) are the people who built the internet, you do realize that they can track you WITHOUT those, through webserver logs.
That would logically mean that there probably was another reason for it. I mean, you're not one to give into silly conspiracy theories, are you?
Oh wait, you forgot also that *SUN* helped build the internet - that Bill Joy pushed the use of TCP/IP commercially in the early 80's and actually WROTE the first UNIX-os that included a TCP/IP stack. Pity.
These grandiose statements that "Sun is faling with Java among the 31337 programmer community" never cease to make me smile.
The open source community's opinion does not reflect world opinion. I also question that the open source community is "technologically savvy" from a programming perspective. Talent is a rare thing in general, and while OSS is lucky to have several very talented programmers (Linus, Alan, Alfredo, etc.), it seems that those people aren't the type to blow-pipe over "Why XXX sucks", whereas the people who couldn't code themselves out of a box troll Slashdot with their ignorant drivel.
Java is an over-hyped technology that doesn't provide any advancement in the art of programming. It is, however a valiant attempt at doing "objects over again", to make up where C++ and Smalltalk failed. [Not that these languages are failures, but in 1999, C++ is a technological mess, and Smalltalk is a business mess.]
-Stu
You missed two important facts:
1. There is always the choice of using the old license, so a new GPL can only remove restrictions on the old code, never create more restrictions.
2. The FSF sends a contract to everyone who donates code, which guareentees that the code will remain free. The contract is almost as detailed about this as the GPL, and leave _very_ little room for changes.
1. I consider it less problematic that GPL'ed software might lose some restrictions than if it gained them.
2. As I wrote, the contract is quote detailed and leave very little room for change. Unfortunately, I only have paper copies of the contract. Maybe someone else can refer to an online copy.
They haven't outright and clear said so yet, but there are very strong hints that they plan to make most, and perhaps eventually, all of their software "community source".
At the JavaOne developer conference recently, this is what Bill Joy said:
Next there's this idea for the Java platform. We tried to create a community and protect it from a predatory company that we were aware of that was likely to try to attack us with contract law, and discovered that contracts sometimes aren't enough to protect us because not everyone thinks they apply to them.
So what we've decided to do going forward is to try to work from a notion of community. You've seen the Java Community Process (JCP). The JCP allows stakeholders in the different areas, like the people who care about realtime to define the realtime stuff, and that's a really good thing.
More recently we've done Community Source, which is an attempt to blend the best things about open source and proprietary models together with the added benefit from open source that when you take a Community Source license, you're allowed to make proprietary enhancements to it. We still insist that you leave the APIs open, but you can take large chunks of commercial money and make commercial investments. This works for companies.
The open source model works for other communities, and for them it's great. But we wanted to come up with a model that would work for traditional companies as well, so that we could quickly move into Community Source as much of our intellectual property as possible, and hopefully all of it going forward. But we insist also that people remain compatible.
So Community Source has an additional right and an additional responsibility relative to open source. We've done this with a lot of our technology already, including picoJava, and Java and Jini technologies. We'll be doing it with more.
I think they way they're going with Jini is pretty good. They could do better for Java though. They're being kinda closed about what they're going to open though, and have only dropped hints and not made definite statements on their website.
However, some things they have hinted/said are: they will open up Solaris later this year. Also, on one of their Solaris pages they say they'll be making a new version of Solaris (presumably Solaris 8) available under their "easy access" (ie beta) program - they've never done that before. They also seem to be working on making their C/C++ development software and compilers available, and to Linux users as well - to help develop code that works on Linux and Solaris more easily. They've also made other things not mentioned in that article available under their "community source".
They do seem pretty serious about it.
Now, another Sun staffer claims Open-Source-like attributes when the SCSL is clearly not Open Source. More distortion.
Does it seem that Sun is grasping at straws here? IBM has released a license for its Java compiler that is compliant with the Open Source Definition. A Java VM is available under the GPL from Transvirtual. Other Java components under bona-fide free software licenses are in process. You don't have to go to Sun for Java any longer.
The most laughable part is that they feel the SCSL is necessary for real companies, and that those companies would not participate in Open Source. Yet, IBM, Apple, and many others belie that claim.
I think Sun has learned some valuable lessons from the Linux development. They just haven't been able to accept them yet. When they do, the SCSL will go away.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
- The SCSL is an amalgam of open source principles and for-profit licensing models of the past. It has been crafted in the spirit of openness avowed in Eric Raymond's now-famous article, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
ESR says :- 9.6 Free the Software, Sell the Brand This is a speculative business model. You open-source a software technology, retain a test suite or set of compatibility criteria, then sell users a brand certifying that their implementation of the technology is compatible with all others wearing the brand. (This is how Sun Microsystems ought to be handling Java and Jini.)
Bill says it is open, ESR says it is not. So who is right?The JINI FAQ says:
- 28. Can code under the GNU Public License (GPL) be incorporated into the Jini technology code base?
I guess the answer is clear.No. Under the terms of the GPL you may not provide Products under a license that may contain more restrictive terms
DWR is Ajax for Java
The license compels you to make your software free and open source. Any modifications that are made to the software must be published if it is to be used for profit. It is very GPLish in the way that it forces openess to people who use the software.
#=-weo-=#
So, like, I figured I should read this license to figure out what's up. I looked around a bit and eventually found it.
The very first thing I noticed is that it's much, much more difficult for a layman to read and understand than the GNU GPL is. Now, everyone reading Slashdot knows how much controversy, confusion and debate the GPL has spawned -- imagine how much worse it would be if the GPL had been written in this incomprehensible style. The SCSL has no preamble which explains the intent of the license; and in order to make any sense of the text of the license, one must continually refer to the license's Glossary to figure out what is meant by all of the Capitalized Words. The SCSL is actually three or more separate licenses all concatenated together, and you have to read a meta-license to determine which of the sublicene(s) apply to you.
So, while I didn't bother reading all of the license, I got the following out of it:
The software is only free (in the Debian Free Software Guidelines sense) for Research Use. You can't use the software freely if you actually have a job. (The Internal Deployment Use sub-license isn't free, either.)
For any other use (including commercial use), there are unacceptable limitations. You can't distribute modifications, and you can't disassemble or reverse engineer executables.
The last thing I noticed, after I quit reading the license in disgust, was that there was a "session ID" appended to the URL. It seems that Sun wanted to track me as I browsed their site. Naughty Sun! (The actual URL that I got for the license when I finally got to it was http://www.sun.com/jini/licensing/scsl_jcp_v.1.6c_ web.html;$sessionid$E5HGUBAAAV2LDAMU VFZE3NQ -- but I snipped the "session ID" garbage from the end before adding the license link in the first paragraph.
Does Sun really think that programmers are so bone-headed that we won't see right through all of their little tricks? We (or our predecessors) are the people who built the Internet! We aren't stupid, and we notice details. Your lawyers can't bury us with avalanches of mumbo-jumbo, because we programmers will eventually pick our way through the maze and find the rotten trash you dropped at the exit.
By playing these petty little power games with us, Sun only continues to alienate us. This is why Java has met with such a cold reception among the technologically savvy user and programmer community -- Sun doesn't want to play by the rules.
Well, just remember that the ultimate power is ours, not theirs. We have the power to disregard Sun's offerings until they come up with a way to work with us instead of against us. Sun isn't offering anything we need -- they're trying to grow a market. We've already got the tools and the talent to go our own direction, without Sun's poisoned candy. So while Sun keeps shooting itself in the foot and feeding fluff to the "HTML coders", we can go on with our lives.
> Jini development team at Sun, acting as "shepherds" for new projects and working groups
:-{.
A rather interesting attitude towards future developers, so long as you stay within the nice little fenced-in commercially viable paddock available, you won't get eaten by those nasty wolves (or penguins) that are out there to steal
your code and ideas
Does controlled chaos really work? Can they motivate week-end hobbyists to become mercenary developers, much less cynical ISVs? What are the motivating factors to encourage individuals to excel? All the greedy capitalists are forming startups, all the zealots are gnuing away, and the erratic geniuses are beavering away on the glory of Linux. Who's left to grab developer's mindshare from?
Given the complexity of software systems nowadays, I suspect the limiting factorfor growth is the learning curve and ease of development. It will be interesting in the medium term to see how well Java/Jini ranks against Windows and Linux as the developer's playground.
LL