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Bill Joy, ESR, RMS and more on SCSL vs GPL
Frank Sullivan writes "Upside Today has this
excellent article on the relative value of Sun's "Community Source" license versus the GPL. Richard Brandt, an Upside columnist, wrote recently that Sun "doesn't get" Open Source. Bill Joy responded with an email saying that SCSL is less restrictive than GPL, rather than more restrictive. Brandt forwarded this to ESR and RMS, and a "frank exchange of views" ensued. Many interesting questions were raised, such as is the right to fork a bug or a feature? Well worth reading, if you're interested in the philosophy of source code licensing.
" Wow. Well worth the time of reading.
=D
Beer. The only substance that can level any playing field.
As long as I get my pretty software in high-quality fashion I don't care what liscence they use. Whether it be GPL, BSD, or SCSL. I'm personally a fan of the BSD liscence.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
As I see it, just the fact that this is being discussed is a good thing, more so that we can all read the discussion. Open debate is the opposite of FUD, because FUD requires ignorance to be effective.
Furthermore, discussing the merits of the GPL is definitely a good thing, because it may one day have to stand up in court.
The GPL would allow you to keep an internal improvement to the Linux core proprietary and closed. You could distribute the binaries throughout the corporation and never have to provide a line of source.
Secondly, he does not make it clear what kind of "improvements" he is referring to. Again, this matters.
Anything that can be compiled and inserted as modules (INCLUDING code which modifies the kernel, as it's running) is NOT covered by the Linux GPL. Thus, such improvements CAN be shipped as closed, proprietary binaries. There's NOTHING to stop you from doing that.
Third, the "normal" method of getting return is to sell your product. The GPL explicitly permits you do do this, just so long as you don't restrict the purchaser's freedom. There's nothing in the GPL that is inherently "anti-sell".
Then, there's the matter of the choice of licence. This guy says he worked on the BSD licence. So why not use that? People are fine with it, you get to keep your binaries as closed as you like, and you don't have the complication of flooding the userspace with different, incompatiable licences.
If there's something I'm seriously missing, please enlighten me! Otherwise, could someone from Sun kindly either fill in the blanks, explain why one of the million other semi-OSS licences (such as BSD) were unused, or rectify the situation by USING one of these other licences! Nobody is pressuring Sun to go GNU!
I happen to like the GPL because it suits my needs. Sun doesn't think it suits theirs, and I respect that. But there's a million alternatives out there. We DON'T need Yet Another Licence, which conflicts with Every Other Licence. Unless there is a VERY good tactical reason for going that route, I would have to say it is mindboggingly STUPID!!!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This shows that the only reason Sun is opening up their source for any reason is so that they can get developers to fix their code, without really having to pay them. They want to be able to make more money. That's the only reason I could see why any big corporation would release existing software as "Open Source."
Sure, there are programmers who program for the money, but there are also those who code because they love to code. Open source in the traditional sense is sort of like Marx's communism. Everyone lives together, and works not for material reward, but more of a spiritual reward.
That's really the big difference. Those who work on GPLed software are usually not business people, and usually don't really care at all how much money anyone is going to be able to make off this product, or how. They just do it, because they want good software.
What I always find curious about the free software community is that they get irked whenever this word "profit" comes up. People have to make money somewhere, to pay all us programmers.
,reverse qq;):zrekcahzlrepzrehtonaztey; );"
I think the GPL is a very interesting liscense, but as slashdot has pointed out in the past, the full GPL has some ambiguities that, if I ran a company, I wouldn't like. LGPL is much better, and follows more along the path of the BSD-style liscences.
Is it fair to say that Sun is making an honest attempt at "going both ways" in open souce? I think so. The SCSL's major difference is that it isn't quite so iron clad about the whole "derivative works", and what you can do with them, thing.
For many companies, the GPL just dosen't make sense. The Open Source Community constantly bashes any company who wants to take those first steps into Open Source. Everyone has to realize that it won't happen overnight, and discouraging these companies will only slow it down by orders of magnitude.
Instead, I think, we should be applauding companies like Sun and Apple who are at least making an attempt. Anything else is counter-productive to the long term goals of the Free Software Community.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
perl -e "print join q( ), split(q.z.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I enjoyed the article. I think it was great to seem them discussing differences of opion, you didn't see Bill Joy shouting, "ESR...you're a PUTZ" or anything like that.
Everyone involved offered up well thought, interesting points. I am a fan of Java, and I think I may be a little more accepting of SCSL in regards to Java. SCSL isn't open source, it's a different tool meant towards a different end.
Dana
Richard Stallman believes that not having access to source code causes material (and psychosocial) harm. Under the GPL, anyone who takes and modifies your code cannot turn it into a proprietary product. He views this is for the good of mankind.
Bill Joy, on the other hand, believes that making just the APIs available is good enough. The FreeBSD license means that you are allowed to develop proprietary software (contrast this with Debian).
For those Java developers who side with Stallman on this issue, a GNU Java compiler does exist.
The fact of the matter is that although source code is not a scarce resource (Since it can be copied infinitely for free) programmers themselves are. Especially good programmers. People and Companies will always need to have programs customized or written from scratch, systems maintained, security reviewed, networks laid out and monitored and all the things that companies do. They need to get used to the idea that if they share some of the stuff they output -- the source code -- and everyone else does the same, that everyone will benefit in the long run. Right now Sun will show us theirs, but they don't really want to share. I suggest they be subjected to Barney videos until they get the picture.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Bill Joy is a "leading technology guru" for Sun, yet he apparently is unfamiliar with the shift key? Ouch! /. posts because the poster obviously slept through English classes, but to get ee cummings affectations from somebody who really wants to be heard is, at least, disconcerting.
I don't mean to dismiss his argument based on grammar flames, but I find his text all but unreadable. I'm used to skipping
Eric Raymond: Very different. The SCSL enforces control with the threat of lawsuit and jail. Linus controls the kernel because the community grants him authority in recognition of his authorship.
Richard Gabriel: What if Torvalds were a dictator? Would this be better or worse than Sun exerting some influence or control? Hard to say.
The kind of control Linus has over the kernel (lets just leave out Alan for simplicity) is far better than what Sun does simply because if for example Linus started to think that upcoming kernel releases should only run on "Genuine Intel" processors, everyone would just start using a kernel distribution managed by someone else. Linus just managed to keep the control by the users respect for the quality of what he is doing, not because it says in some license that he is entitled to that control.
Somehow he claims that the right to implement compatible applications (i.e. to reverse engineer an API in the case of Java) is the "right to fork" granted by the SCSL.
I refuse to believe that this seasoned programmer doesn't understand the meaning of a code fork. Rather it seems he is just determined to divert the issue. It seems clear to me that SCSL doesn't allow code forking (i.e. complete, modified versions of the source may not be redistributed under SCSL or any other license).
This is not a Good Thing (TM), from our (Free Software/Open Source community) point of view. Nevertheless we recognize Sun's right to license their code in any way they see fit, as they recognize ours. But I would at least hope they could be honest about it and not claim that their license offers something it doesn't.
Bill Joy wrote "scsl gives people the right to fork: they are allowed to reverse engineer from the APIs."
Thankfully he has clarified the whole mess for me. If that's his definition of code forking, then I will never, ever, touch anything under the SCSL.
Now, what I'm wondering, is it even possible to copyright an API in the first place? Wouldn't things like WINE get into trouble if that were so? Or is Sun trying to get kudos for giving us something we already have?
Did it seem like at the end Bill Joy wanted to stamp his feet, shake his fist and wimper "I'm right dammit." It is understandable that Bill Joy will have some disagreement with RMS, afterall, Bill Joy makes money from his code. It didn't seem that he understood the arguments at all. Take this part for example:
Richard Brandt: bill--thanks for your thoughtful response. the issue to me seems to be this: i understand that you can benefit from your own innovations to java as long as they do not break compatibility. that is why i referred to "significant" changes being forbidden, and specifically defined those as changes that might break the compatibility. i noted that you can freely use enhancements that pass the compatibility tests.
Bill Joy Responds: this is wrong because under this definition there are essentially NO significant changes to java because we have a very strict rule against breaking compatibility with few exceptions (mostly bug fixes, when something is broken in a way that staying compatible with the bug is worse than fixing it).
Translation:
Richard Brandt[k]: I don't like your way because it doesn't allow this...
Bill Joy[k]: You're wrong. But what you said is exactly right.
I understand Sun's desire to make sure they retain control of their code, and that they want to make a profit from it no matter what, but if that's what they want to do to do then they shouldn't try to fool people into thinking that the SCSL exists to help the community in any significant way. The important part of what it does is enable the community to maintain Sun's code at no cost to sun.
It seems to me that, if Sun truly "gets it", all their stated goals could be handled by BSD-style (old or new) licensing and strict trademark enforcement. That would allow developers to do what they need to with the code, and allow Sun to squelch forking by preventing incompatible forks from using the trademarks. Any forks that don't use the trademarks won't be an "embrace and extinguish" attempt like Joy fears, just like changes to Mesa can't possibly hurt OpenGL.
We all know that Bill Joy is very familiar with BSD licensing issues. It's clear, at least to me, that his only real objection to Free/Open Source software can be better solved by Trademark Law instead of Copyright Law. Therefore, there must be an unstated objection. Personally, I suspect the unstated objection is that Sun management is fearful of the Free Software Movement and wants to get some of the publicity benefit of being "Open" and "Free" without actually helping the movement.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
You can say what you like about the technologies, but what I like about Perl, C++ and Linux (amongst others) is exactly the benign dictatorship model that ESR explains. C++ died a death (of sorts) when Bjarne submitted the process to ANSI/ISO standardisation, before that the entire team worked well together - afterwards it became a mess.
These projects work by some gatekeeper keeping control by being first, being reasonable, and being respected, not by threat of courtcase and changing the rules under peoples feet. One of the first things you learn when managing programmers is that being the boss means you've got to let other people be right, be smarter, be quicker than yourself.
The B.D. model works with this maturity - the old way doesn't ("I'm right 'cos I'm mother/teacher/bigger/P.H.B.").
The license agreement, the legalese, the product, well they can be discussed elsewhere, but I trust the future of a product built with a process built on maturity and respect, rather than FUD, bullying and intimidation.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Bill Joy clearly doesn't mean "community" in the same way the word is understood in the Linux community or indeed almost anywhere else. For Sun and their (proprietary, closed) Java/jini "community", it is a feel-good warm 'n' fuzzy corporate euphemism for "franchise". At best. What the term means at worst is left as an exercise for the reader.
Why did this article permit Joy to be the only one who addressed the so-called "right to make money"? I grow weary of this strawman argument that GPL doesn't allow programmers any income from their labor. But surely Mr. Anti-Socialism Raymond would have had a few choice words on this topic.
"Sun does "get" the open source movement. It is simply unwilling to embrace it."
This is fine, it is a free world. They can do what they want and feel is best, and so can everyone else. As has been said ad infinitum about GPL v. BSD, make a choice and get on with life. SCSL still beats the hell out of the MSCSL.
....
my take on this. Bill Joy said:
if you do something to improve linux, you have to give it back to everyone because of gpl. therefore, you don't own your own innovations and the reward for these (other than fame) goes to ???.
??? = the community , i.e. the same folks that gave you linux in the first place.
Bill (is it Joy or Gates...) has quite obviously decided that money is the end all be all and if you can't leverage your product to make money you are a dad-gum fool. I'm starting to get the impression that software and capitalism don't mix too good, I guess it's that whole infinite supply thing.
+&x
The exchange of ideas in that article is rather muddy because of the misperception that GPL can and should cater to the classic corporation as well as the volunteer hacker.
The GPL suits me just fine because I do programming for fun (as well as at work), and I have no notions of profiting financially from my code. If someone builds on my product and sells it for $50 a pop, that is fine with me as long as they comply with the license.
However, there are companies out there dipping their toes in the water that most of us volunteers are already swimming in. Companies who (suprise!) do not believe in a business model like Red Hat's; they do not want someone to be able to come along and sell their $80 box under a different name for the cost of the CD. Using this new license they can enhance an SCSL'ed product and sell it w/o source and actually make a buck. This license is not aimed at individuals, it is for corporations and commercial use.
That does not mean that the SCSL approach is not fundamentally flawed; I believe it probably is. (even the name using foghorn words like 'community' puts me off) It still gives Sun the last word on enhancements and fixes, and it also looks like you still have to pay royalties for commercial use. If Linux's success thus far is any indication, true open source will gradually win out over any closed source solutiuon in the corporate IT world as it has already for individual hackers.
Also remember, just because a company is using SCSL does not mean that their output must be proprietary; they may release the source of their product (under SCSL of course) or they may not.
It is not a question of the Linux crowd 'rejecting' SCSL; it is a matter of both parties using the license best suited to them.
JAD
This isn't true.
Internet bandwidth costs money. Distribution media costs money.
Perhaps you meant to say "low cost"?
As far as your other claims. I as an individual have certain skills and certain things which I enjoy doing.
Yes I can do tech-support for software, I've done it in the past. But you know what? I FUCKING HATE DOING IT!
I prefer to create, and that is a skill that I have and in our world if people find my skills worthwhile they will pay me money.
I don't think I need to get used to your new world order because I don't see any great inherent benefit from it. It doesn't benefit me, it doesn't benefit my company, it doesn't benefit mankind.
Sure it benefits you because you can get everything for free. But why should I be forced to give away my labor just because you are a cheapskate?
I think Bill Joy has the right idea here. If the APIs are open, and if the source code is open to review, everybody benefits.
Well frankly, I am of the opinion that Sun parasitic relationship with free software should be met with a cold shoulder.
Bill Joy has said: "scsl is LESS restrictive than gpl ala linux. it allows you to innovate and profit from your innovation in the normal ways. gpl does not."
Sorry Bill, it doesn't work that way. The scsl puts up insurmountable obstacles to both using the code in other projects and also restricts the ability of a coder to help out with bug fixing a SCSL covered project. So is that what is less restrictive?
Those who have followed this debate know the rest of the crap that Sun is trying to pull and If this kind of doublethink was restricted to the halls of Sun that would be fine, but remember Sun's prominance means that thier view of open source gets attention. This makes sun a tick on the ass of free software.
So how's that for a rant.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
Linux Community Evangelist
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Bill Joy makes a number of very valid arguments. Personally I agree with him and his motives.
As far as this claim that Sun is only doing this so they can get others to fix their bugs for them...
Who cares?
I as a consumer welcome this. If I find a bug in the widget module, and I have the source code... I can fix the bug!
I can then share my bugfix back with Sun who will incorporate it into the next release of the program. Then when we get the upgrade to the next release, not only do we get my bug fix, we get the bug fixes from thousands of other customers, along with new functionality from Sun's programmers.
That's a win-win situation for me. As a corporate IT shop, I don't want to have to maintain our core infrastructure software. It's hard enough for me to maintain my own custom business software.
That's why I am paying Sun for their software.
Ohwell. It seems the Linux community does a lot of foot stamping and screaming whenever someone suggests that their model doesn't suit business needs. So be it, but I think Sun has the right idea here.
I think someone needs to give this self-center, egotistical community a spanking. Here are some talking points.
/. you might have the intellect to become your own shepard. Your most important tool is the word "why". Use it question you own assumptions. Question the assumptions of others. Question the assumption of your "community" leaders. Don't be a sheep.
There is no open-source movement
There are, however, open-source projects. If you are a coder and you first decision is the license followed by the idea for a project, you are not really a coder. You are a manager and your project will only succeed by luck or happenstance.
There is a Free Software movement
While I would disagree with RMS on just about everything, I respect the hell out of him. His clarity of purpose and resolute aherence to his core philisophy is a wonder to behold.
Programmers are gods
If you create the program, you control the source. You can choose a free or proprietary license. The code has no life of its own and the simplistic anthropomorphism that asserts that the source code does have a life separate from it's creator or maintainer is the product of one too many viewings of Tron.
The madness of crowds
A venue like slashdot tends to have the same effects as mob behavior as it has been chronicled since the French Revolution. The cry for companies to open their source code festers and swirls into a freenzy. Not a week goes by without a call to boycott or act against one body or another. Accept the fact that some of you may know it all. There is a big world out there and logic and conceit are not a good combination.
The sheep
One thing you should learn is that people are like sheep. If you are reading
The SCSL to me seems to want to _enforce_ what tends to happen naturally in most Open Source projects: There is a "core" group of developers who approve or reject any changes the rest of the world make to the code.
Dunno what else they allow or disallow, because the SCSL is longer than most "normal" EULAs and I don't have the patience to read it.
I'm guessing on length alone, it's way more restrictive than the GPL.
Plus, unless Sun plans to pay people who submit patches, Bill Joy is flat-out lying when he says the SCSL allows people to profit from their code.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I think I'm more interested in Richard Gabriel's comments than any other part of this article. He is something of a dark horse in this debate.
Gabriel argues that open source authors could retroactively revoke their open source licenses at any time, though it might take a court case to determine that. That may be. It is exactly what the University of Washington is attempting to do with PINE.
But if so, that principle applies to all kinds of software licenses, not just the GPL. If an author can retroactively revoke a source code license, Sun could pull the SCSL after receiving improvements for a few years and leave developers high and dry. Indeed, based on the history of the principals, Sun is a lot more likely to pull that trick than Linus or RMS are.
Gabriel goes on to ask, "What if Torvalds were a dictator?"
In fact, Linus is a dictator -- a benevolent dictator. He makes all of the final decisions (modulo Alan) about what goes into the kernel. Traditionally, the development community seems to be happier with a benevolent dictatorship than with a pseudo-democracy.
Between Gabriel's devils-advocacy and Joy's harping on talking about "stewardship" rather than "ownership" -- as though Sun were merely an altruistic third-party overseeing its own software products -- the whole thing makes me awfully queasy.
One last thing. Bill Joy suggests that licenses like BSD are business-friendly. Yet he does not even use his own BSD license at Sun. He must not have much faith in Sun's ability to make money from a BSD license.
Having a smoking section in a resturant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
you wrote:
"If Linux's success thus far is any indication, true open source will gradually win out over any closed source solutiuon in the corporate IT world as it has already for individual hackers."
I agree, but I don't think I agree for the same reason.
What Sun is offering is 'open source' software.
The GPL/Linux community does not agree because it is not given away for free. There in lies the important distinction.
In a previous post to /. attached to It's the Developers, Stupid!: The Real NT-Linux Battle I mentioned my belief that the only thing that is really important is the API's and that the most important API's today are those which allow for component based programming.
Clearly Sun and Bill Joy agrees with this statement. Firstly they have made great strides in making Java a modern component based environment through such things as Java Beans, Enterprise Java Beans and JINI. Secondly they have done everything they can to retain control of how those API's are developed in the future. Look at the licensing they employ. Look at the effort they went through to find an open standards organization willing to rubber stamp their requirements for Java itself. Look at this whole issue of code forking.
The problem is that they are in business to make money. I cannot find fault with that. If they feel a need to control the API's for Java, then more power to them. But they should not expect me, or anyone else, to want to play the game by their rules!
Nor should they expect me to believe the propaganda. Sun is trying to portray themselves as brothers with the Open Source community against a common enemy. What they are not saying is that they want to be Microsoft. That little fable about the "Lion's Share" near the end of the article was telling...
In my opinion it boils down to this: We need a fast, simple, powerful and complete Open Source solution for component based development. An API (preferably a cross platform one) that you can write code to in any of the most popular languages. And it must have a reference implementation that is open source with a GPL license. It should be highly Object Oriented and should provide base objects for every major Design Pattern. It should front-end the OS so completely that you can write a new OS which directly provided the relevant API's (making it a kind of Meta-OS). The API itself should be open and there should be a standards committee that isn't loaded with representatives from the big companies. Plus, no-one is penalized for producing a non-compatible version (other than the fact that compatible versions would probably receive a greater market share).
I have been working on my own for some time to develop the beginings of such a standard. A kind of hobby for me. And I know there are plenty of people out there who will claim such a thing already exists in (choose one) PERL, Python, Smalltalk, Gnome or some flavor of the month. I don't think any of those things meet all the criteria of the environment I want to see, but I can state one thing rather confidently...
Until we pull together a produce such a thing the Open Source movement will have a lot of difficulty competing against Sun and Microsoft in the Business Systems space.
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
i think that it's becoming obvious that there's a real rift here - its hard to say who's right. in my mind essentially the winner is whichever process creates the most vibrant set of companies, free/paid software, and general utility to humankind...on one side linux is spawning a feeding frenzy and the other java is too! the one thing i will say is that it seems that the sun way is better for true innovation in terms of creating new IP and releasing it but still profiting from it. the gpl is better for derivative works such as "unix clones"....if you look at the roadmap for linux its pretty muc hstuff that already exists but exists as proprietary products. java is NEW.
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Well, I already replied to one poster on the whole article bit, so I'm going to shoot a bit of a tangent off now. For a while now I've been trying to get support for a site that tries to educate people about licenses - no bias. When I say no bias, I mean that anything contriversal would have to be footnoted with research. Unfortunately, not to many people have been to eager to help, other than say.. sounds useful.
Obviously people disagree on things, from ignorance or real problems. Would it not be better to give more of a resource? Even here people are mixing up what FSF's and BSDL's license goals our and the SCSL's our.. which is why the emails went back and forth with RMS, ESR, and Bill Joy.
If anyone wants to help, or other info, email me.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
It seems that Bill Joy does not understand the fundamental enabling principles of the GPL, and their truly democratic nature.
1. Modifications to another's work are judged by the community and ONLY the community, with no barrier to redistribution. In a worst-case scenario, if Linus doesn't like someone's mod to the kernel, but 50% of the rest of the community does, this 50% of the community does not have to wait for Linus or anybody else to approve anything in order to use the modification. It would sure be nice to fix some long standing Java bugs and OPTIMIZE some of the existing implementations without having to go through Sun or write my own versions of their implementations.
"Torvalds is a philosopher-king, let's say. Do you prefer that to a democracy?". Bah!
Imagine if we had to go through a single entity who controlled who got to run for President of the U.S. on the basis of the 'compatability of their philosophy' with the ideals of the controlling entity. That certainly is not a democracy to me. To call the SCSL democratic is playing fast and loose with the word. The GPL is WAY more a democracy, because there is no GATEWAY ENTITY.
2. If the fork illustrated by #1 does happen, the GPL ensures that a third party can come along and find a way to make the two forked code bases distributable as a unit, with perhaps a compiler switch or a 'compile-time' module or patch. If this work passed community scrutiny, it will be accepted by a large majority. This is only possible because they have access to the source code of both distributions, and they can get it out to people to look at DURING AND AFTER the development process with NO SINGLE GATEWAY ENTITY.
The problem with the SCSL is that SUN is the gateway entity. You can't distribute your mods or get help with development or testing without going through SUN to pass their compatability tests. So everyone involved in the development process must bind themselves to the SCSL, and you can't even solicit community review before the code is 'finished'. In essence, you have to use the JCK and pay SUN to do your QA for you if you can't afford to pay people to enter into the SCSL agreement, which most open source developers do not want to do.
Granted, the Blackdown Java-Linux port is quite stable in it's pre-release form. If the SCSL weren't in the way, I for one would contribute a significant amount of effort to making that port successful, since I use Java almost exclusively in my software development services business. I would put particular effort into optimizing the Java APIs, which would result in faster Java everywhere, benefitting Sun.
But Sun obviously isn't ready to take the step of making the free software community their development PARTNER. With the SCSL, they have come as close as possible without actually giving up anything. They just have to realize that if they don't give something up, nobody else will either.
What disturbs me is that Sun tries to portray the SCSL as fair to the those on the other side of the agreement, and better that the GPL for the community. At most, it is a legal vehicle for releasing source code to paying licensees. At worst, it ensnares unknowing developers into not being able to work on clean-room implementations by exposing them to Sun's intellectual property on unfair terms. They are in deep public denial if they are trying to say that the SCSL is their answer to the GPL or any open source development process.
Mike
I am offended by Bill Joy's attitude that it's a wonderful thing, being able to add your own proprietary code to what everyone else has contributed and "not give it back". I gave up counting how many times he used that phrase. He seems quite proud of the concept.
He doesn't have even a first approximation of understanding the GPL. It's the same blindness that thinks Linux can fork as his BSD has forked, and as commercial UNIX has forked. The very fact that the GPL requires changes be GPLd is why it won't fork.
Put it another way: which license has prevented forking, and which one has encouraged it?
And finally, at one point he claims that the Sun licenses are better because they freeze the API but allow innovation behind the scenes; he also denigrates Linux as being a mere clone of the Unix API. Which way does he want it? Is this jealousy?
--
Infuriate left and right
I started to get this weird feeling, especially in the last segment with Gabriel and ESR, that I was reading a transcript from a lawyers lunchtime discussion. BTW, wtf is a chaord?
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Richard Gabriel: ...Next week we will be deciding the democratic principles and processes by which all changes to Jini are made. (We don't use the Java Community Process)
Torvalds is a philosopher-king, let's say. Do you prefer that to a democracy?
Design by committee is a terrible way to go about working on a software product. The architecture would start looking like Frankenstein's monster.
It is in fact a key piece of open source projects that they have one person, or a small group of people at the core of the project, guiding the design and deciding which patches are integrated from the community.
I guess the thing about commentators discussing SCSL is that they usually don't check the facts, philosophy, etc., or talk to the principals. I suppose that's a problem that Sun needs to solve through publishing, and we're working on it.
I guess he's being self-referential here!
-Snoot
If you GPL something, and then sell it to me. I am not allowed to redistribute it.
Absolutely wrong. You can sell it, give it away, whatever. You just can't prevent anyone else from doing the same, and you have to provide the source, if nto with the sale, at least provide access.
--
Infuriate left and right
I used to think so too, but you can fork GPLed code. You can't do it as an individual- only corporations can legally fork GPLed code. This is because they are legal individuals, and thus they are able to put their own programmers under NDAs (where you are not legally able to put your friends under NDAs w.r.t GPLed code) because the GPL applies only to them and the individual programmers are 'shielded' from being liable to the terms of the license.
Doing so means they can accomplish substantially more development while remaining in an entirely closed process- and they will- the Corel beta argument was just the beginning, and apparently Corel was well within its rights.
I don't like it either, but at this point a corporation has more freedom to fork and withhold GPLed code than an OSS developer has.
This is so typical of companies which are being harassed by Microsoft's dominance. We have seen Netscape's NPL, Apple's APSL, Sun's SCSL, and so on. Why do all of these licenses purport to be free software/open source licenses and then fall short of The Community's expectations?
Because these companies are only interested, after all, in becoming the next Microsoft. The next monopoly. Such ambitions will necessarily conflict with The Community's interests. It is impossible to craft a license that will serve our interests as well as their aims of World Domination. They are trying to leverage a community's selflessness to achieve selfish goals. It just can't happen.
Open Source was meant to help businesses grok the concept of free software. But it is sad that companies still Don't Get It. They still think that, somehow, open source is a way to "get around" free software ala GPL. It is not.
sreeram.
To the tune of The Chicken Song (by Spitting Image)
Hold a JINI in the air,
Push some JAVA in your node;
Read the Sun Licence,
And then open up your code.
Boot the GPL,
And profit off the hacks;
Rig a PR coup,
And get the pressmen off your backs.
Hack some X/Motif,
And some cross-platform utils;
Take the hard-disks out,
And then pay off all your bills.
Open up your corp,
And SCSL your boss;
Fold your manuals up,
And throw out JavaOS.
The code is loud and grating,
It's truly nausiating,
The hard drive is vibrating,
Let's do the "make" again!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
When you download any Java whitepaper or product from Sun in the future please take the time to read the license. It clearly states that Sun holds the copyright to the APIs enclosed in the product which you are about to download. If their back is up against the wall - don't believe for a second they would not try to defend their intellectual property rights.
>> I can then share my bugfix back with Sun who will incorporate it into the next release of the program. Then when we get the upgrade to the next release, not only do we get my bug fix, we get the bug fixes from thousands of other customers, along with new functionality from Sun's programmers. hummm...so you're doing the Sun's leg-work for FREE. and you still be happy to buy the next release with your bug fix. Sorry, your statment don't make sense to me. I don't care about SCSL or GPL or whatever, but if I put my time and my brain cells on something(even fix bugs) I believe I should get PAY!!!
Suppose I don't like the java servlet API. Maybe I think it is too complicated. So, i throw a few pieces out. Then I produce a servlet engine based on this new 'simplified' API. 95% of all current servlets are still compatible.
If I understand Bill Joy's comments, he says this is ok. I can 'fork' the servlet API by reverse-engineering it and modifying it.
But this flies in the face of what I understand to be Sun's licensing WRT java standard extensions, of which the servlet API is a member. So, what's the deal?
How can they feel the rain but not know of the flood?
Is Sun's attitude the result of selling the Open Source concept while trying to downplay the Free Software aspect? Was Richard Stallman right after all?
Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source''
To summarize: Lion asks wolf and fox to team up to kill a deer. Fox tricks deer into the open, wolf chases deer to wolf, Lion kills deer. Lion eats most of the carcass ("the lion's share"), leaving only scraps for the fox and wolf.
This implies that the Open Source community is getting shafted after contributing equally to Java, Jini, etc. That's nuts. Sun put up the R&D money and paid for the coders to come up with these things. Nor would the Open Source community's efforts be equal to the people that Sun is paying -- most of the non-paid contributions would be in the form of bug fixes, which, while important, pale in comparison to the huge effort in actually designing a beast like Java in the first place.
Sorry, but to me, this whole thing smacks of the Open Source community being unable to come up with ideas of its own and then slamming other companies when they won't hand over their creations. If you don't like the license, then don't use it -- find someone else's code to tweak or (Wow, here's an idea!), actually create something yourself. As Joy himself said, they "are not doing SCSL for the Linux community. If they believe they are a 'gift' culture, fine, but we are working to enable commercial and entrepreneurial investment."
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
if linux succeeds ultimately in having a single standard and profitable companies around it, it will be considered another successful model. both models can coexist, and microsoft too.
The goal of the SCSL is, obviously, for Sun to be able to take advantage of a volunteer development community, so as to improve their software as well as give them "street cred" with the open source/free software communit[y|ies]. But ultimately, their goal is to increase profits.
The GPL's goal, on the other hand, is to promote the development and growth of robust, stable, [insert positive adjective] software. Its primary goal is NOT profit. Ideally, once there is lots of good GPL software out there, people will use it. But Bill Joy is apparently stuck on the idea that the only successful software model is one that creates lots of money.
--- Dirtside
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Neat article, but did anyone understand what the
heck they were trying to say with the Lion story
at the end?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
In anycase, it was a strange (telling?) word to use.
The issue is whether a third party can legally offer a variant (strictly speaking, yet another fork) that represents the unification of two arbitrary forks.
With the GPL, if the forks have been distributed, then the answer is, basically, yes, a third party can do that, without asking for permission, though it's polite to do so anyway, at least to find out if anybody else is working on the task.
Forks of BSD's or SCSL's code, however, once distributed, might not be available as, or legally accessable and redistributable in modified form as, source code.
E.g. EGCS was a fork from GCC2. The FSF couldn't stop EGCS, but the GPL ensured that EGCS was available as source. EGCS unified back with GCC, but any third party could have produced a unified version at any point.
(Not a big deal, since the fork was more of developer resources than of code base, insofar as GCC2 had a very small "tine" compared to EGCS's as of a few months after the fork.)
So Linux might (and probably does, in a limited sense) fork. Let's say Joe Quux gets a bunch of people to support his fork of Linux, because they don't like Linus's handling. Since Quux Linux must also be distributed under the GPL, i.e. with source code, anyone can come along and merge Linus Linux with Quux Linux to create their fork. The community chooses which fork to support in a variety of ways. Ideal? Hardly, but who better to decide what is the One True Version of, say, Linux than the community?
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Bill Joy: object-oriented programming works by adding new packages and by extending existing objects with new subclasses/sub-objects. if you extend in this way, the sensible way, then compatibility is easy. don't get hung up on compatibility.
this modular extension mechanism, by the way, is what makes writing in java about four times the productivity of c++/c, which are too low-level to get the benefits.
To say that all extensions to an existing API can be done by subclassing is to live in an object-oriented la-la-land.
You can only subclass what's there in the first place. Creating APIs that are general enough to be extended for any possible application in the future is really difficult and rare. Many of Sun's Java APIs are great for the 80% of applications that the designers had in mind when they wrote them. But try extending them in some novel way and you're wishing you could muck with the proprietary code under the hood, quite possibly violating Sun's definition of compatibility.
Richard Gabriel: Am I permitted to take Linux, change the kernel and make an NT out of it? Hard to say whether Torvalds would tolerate it.
Eric Raymond: Not hard at all. As long as you GPLed your changes, Linus would not object.
Shouldn't this read :
"Linus COULD not object." i mean, he could object, but there isn't anything he could do about it, as long as the changes are released under the GPL it's up to the users to choose which kernel to use... [might not be able to call it Linux anymore]
henri
comments? am i way off here?
Uh? How many other java compilers do you know, which compiles directly to batch-optimized native machine code for a zillion platforms?
And what kind of proprietary innovation are you talking about, that the SCSL compiler allows and the GPL compiler doesn't?
No because he does a good job, but because nobody else wants it, belive me, it tears you down.
I'm begining to get a bit sad about the stupidity of my community :(
Either this community are unable to read or just hates Sun for the sake of it.
Either way, dumb sheeps.
Sun uses SCSL instead of BSD license because all the patents etc that are in the code.
They have invested shitloads of money in Solaris,
why should they give it away?
They don't use GPL because it would force inovators to release their code under GPL.
Most of you should get back to school and learn how to read.
Now the SCSL allows system administrators to tweak there own systems out, previously kind of hard to do since most didn't have the money for the source..
There is no reason that the license should be an issue. It keeps the rights of the software under SUN. the GPL puts the rights under the Free Software Foundation, whom put it under the Community. But SUN doesn't want to rely on FSF and GNU foundation lawyers to protect its rights, and if i was a multibilion dollar company with responsibilities to my investors, i wouldn't do it either..
RedHat is and other companies base there system on the GNU code, adding to it.. Sun bases its business on its own code.. but alas is now providing it.
So there is nothing wrong with sun, nothing WRONG with its license.. if your "moraly effected" then go on a vacation and take a break from the computer for a while.
But it gives me control, allows me to make changes, and if i wanted to, I could sell those changes as a server or value added.
But if you just want them to GPL everything so Linux could get the code, then thats a different issue.
Could it be that acceptance of one type of license vs. another simply boils down to readability, i.e. whether a mere mortal can quickly scan and understand it?
In this respect, the BSD and GPL licenses rule, closely followed by the Perl artistic license. All of these are clearly written with understandability in mind, not just with a lawyer's mindset.
However, the licenses that Netscape produced, and worse still what SUN published with their SCSL is so bloated and peppered with legal terms that the average developer may tire and loose momentum before he/she actually reaches the end of the document.
I know I only finished reading the SCSL because I made it a point to be able to report to users here on campus what it may mean to them.
I would think that at least in the academic sector and among the crowd of 'hobby enthusiasts', people have little patience to wade through legalese, hence there will be little participation in 'open source' projects that are marred with a long and incomprehensible license.
ESR stated that a plausible promise will motivate people to participate. This may include an interesting project, strong design and reasonably clean, understandable (and maybe even working) source. I propose that clean and strong design be also applied to the license (or simply use an established and accepted license). lest noone will bother.
All issues of substance aside, doesn't Bill Joy come across as someone unskilled in the art of advocacy through persuasion and reason?
You get the idea he's not presenting his case with an eye towards convincing the undecided; instead, the main goal of discussion is to make himself feel better. Not the way to make friends and influence people, in my experience.
Please show some courtesy.
If you a decent level of tecnical ability and are familiar with the man, you know Bill Joy is not stupid.
As for a liar, I don't know him personally nor do you, so I don't think you should accuse him of such a character defect. You might disagree with his views, and he might be incorrect (or correct), but that doesn't mean that he is a liar. I don't know of anything publicacly that he's done for you to accuse him like that.
- sigs are for wimps.
I found Raymond's respose to the question of forking Linux by Gabriel to be more then just a little disengenuous. Has he actually talked to someone who has tried to fork open source code? I think if he had, he would find that the development community comes down on these things like a ton of bricks. What do you think would happen if there were a credible threat of a linux fork from an organized group of developers? I can tell you I would not want to be on the receiving end what would get dished out by the rest of the development community against them. Thorvolds a dictator? maybe not, but there are plenty of people around that are willing to enforce compatibility.
But they should not confuse people by ridiin on the bandwagon of concepts that others invented.
It's rather like a company that sprays its vegetables with pesticides calling its vegetables organic because vegetables are made of organic matter.
APIs are just a fancy way of documenting your source code. Bill Joy as much as stated that when he talked about only accepting compatibility breaking big fixes for bugs that were worse the the compatability problem would be.
The only way to have a truly open standard is to have completely open source code, because source code is the ultimate documentation of what something does.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Jakarta was contributed last weekend to the Apache project under the Apache license (Open Source).
It's a servlet 2.2 engine. Runs by itself as a web server. Works fine with Linux 2.3 KHTTPD. Will plug into Apache soon too. Supports JSP.
SCSL isn't the entirety of Sun's thought on interacting with developers. The fact that executives tout it (Bill Joy is not a real developer any more!) is why it gets so much noise; too bad the other opinions don't seem to have any real visibility.
Of course, I happen to believe that Sun donated this code to Apache since they wanted to be "out" of the really Open end of the biz. By doing this they ensure that a good open source servlet engine exists, and can take the development resources that were doing a web server and apply them to areas where it'll be a lot harder for someone else to create a technology, like an EJB distributed transaction framework.
I run the risk of pissing a bunch of you off.. but here's my take. I think that the SCSL is a load of crap. I am very careful about what license I use. I think that people should really read the SCSL. And weep..
in fact, here's my summary (taken from above post) of the terms and limitations.
1. Developers to have access to the code for further understanding how to work ontop of Sun's products/innovations.
You must give us your gonads to view the code. Developers who violate this provision will be burned at the stake.
2. Developers can improve Sun's code and make a profit. This is only restricted in selling bug fixes.
For every profit you make off of sun, we want a steak. That's right.. from Ruth's Cris too, not some Dingle Steak Hut!
3. Developers cannot create forks, in the essense of creating incompatable versions of the Java programming language, etc.
In the interrest of stifling real innovation, sun has decided that we're better that you are. We are cool. How dare you add an unsanctioned method!! Developers who wish to fork will be fried up like pork rinds by our favorite developer, Bill "Frydaddy" Joy.
4. Sun can make royalties, a profit, while also bringing developers to working with Sun, and at times on Sun's platform.
In addition, sun reserves the right to revoke your license if you present yourself without deoderant, clean teeth, and without toe-jam. If you even THINK about making more than us from Java, we'll send out the SPANISH INQUISITION!!
In addition, should sun decide that you developers arn't good - we'll change the api (every version since 1.0) even though we say we arn't going to. All developers are bad. Except the ones who have bought us steak.
Our pack of corporate lawyer bull dogs will happily come over to explain your violation(and we're sure you have violated something.. come on!). We will bring over our own copy of pulp fiction, thank you.
Nobody's called sun a Nazi yet. This discussion is still active.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
This is weird. Are any of you GPL-skeptical folks out there considering releasing your latest project under the shiny new SCSL? Why not? And when is this annoying "GPL-is-communism" metathread going to end? I'm not sure debating SCSL and GPL gets anyone anywhere. The SCSL is an alternative to GPL for exactly one company: Sun.
(First I should say: I am a developer. I'm GPL-biased. I'll explain.)
There are a couple really big differences between GPL and SCSL, from the developer's point of view--and this is what really matters, since without developer interest, you do not have a platform.
First, these two licenses have fundamentally different purposes. I see no arena in which GPL and SCSL can compete. The first word in GPL is "general." The first word in SCSL is "Sun."
"General" as in operating systems, word processors, development tools; written by you, or by me, or by a software company. GPL makes absolutely no bones about who owns the work: the author owns it, whether it's me, or a little kid, or a company, or your mom.
Sun's license was created because Sun needs to control the source of Solaris. They could not choose the GPL for obvious reasons, but they still wanted the massively parallelized debugging, etcetera. So they invented a new licence tailored to these needs, giving Sun control. That's fine.
But the SCSL really doesn't have any other purpose. I notice that many on slashdot are comparing SCSL and GPL, as if they are two options on the software developer's palette. But only Sun would consider SCSL as such an alternative. I know there won't ever be a lot of independent software produced by innovative people all around the world and released under SCSL, since it would have to be owned by Sun in the first place.
If I write a program on my own time, for myself or for a friend, I own it. If I'm an altruistic guy, I'll GPL it and give it away, as long as nobody can try to wrest ownership and rights from me. It belongs to me, I choose the GPL, that's pretty much it.
Why would I, on a volunteer basis, in my right mind, waste any time doing SCSL work? If somebody paid me I might, yes... but that brings me right back to the fact that the GPL is designed not to implement a communist utopia, but to manage the difficult task of retaining ownership and control of a program even when it is given away free and when derivative works are allowed. Not easy to do.
For those who like to drop the C-word in their GPL talk, the fact that we're doing it by choice (unlike any communist system, which can only work by making damn sure you can't choose an alternative because you would) is not the only argument against your idea.
The GPL is property rights for programs. Right of ownership of anything is quite non-communist. After all, if I own something myself, I might be able to get more of it. And then I would keep the "more." Then I might get more. If this is money, I might have more money than my neighbor, and this is what communism tries (and fails miserably) to avoid. If you think GPL has anything to do with this system, I think you have a problem.
Argue with GPL; produce reasons and statements about why you think it sucks. Calling it "communism" achieves nothing and only makes one look stupid in the eyes of people who know better.
I think the GNU philosophy and the Sun Licence are both great, because you can do something about those showstopper bugs, instead of sitting by while your company goes bankrupt (at least in a server-side enviroment).
... NOTHING. The paper clearly didn't contain enough BEEF to make the system, and the language used to implement it was not available. This totally SUCKS ASS, especially since I paid a shitload of TAX last year.
... the Universities are ripping us off.
But I do favour the GNU philosophy because coding the stuff is such a small part of the job of making systems. Very often academics write a lot of stuff telling us the best way to write systems, so why not just write some code instead, and let the community collaborate on making it solid.
Linux and GNU is seriously kewl, I just hope that more universities gets in on it.
Recently I found a NLP system that my university NTNU has researched, it was one professor who used my Tax money to develop a language for NLP design, and a Ph.D. student who wrote a paper about it. But wat do I get
There are more important things than going after corporations trying to make a buck
BTW: Thanks to Sun for making Java, I love it !!! And Bill Joy is probably the smartest, most sympathetic and laid back guy in the IT industry today.
Which is fine, but are you sure you want to give up the ability to do it or hire it done, if Sun can't be bothered?
Take a look at their site to see the definition. As far as I can see it is pleasant BS, but hey, Visa works on the principle...
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Somehting beautiful about watching an honest
debate amongst intelligent people.
I give it a 10.
Bill Joy and the other guy(sorry other guy!)
make some excellent points but in the end
they *are* the lion and cannot dispute that
fact.
Sun wants the benefits of open source *and*
dominance of the coders and the code. Here's
how I see it:
PHB's sit down at a meeting. Begin discussing
open source and all the potential benefits and
pitfalls for them. Groupthink ensues. Result
is a synthesis of open source with all the pitfalls for sun removed. What they have is a
GPL Frankenstein, an Opensource Mutant.
They saw magic associated with open source.
They *wanted* this magic but only the magic, not
the responsibilities that go with it. Perhaps
they thought that if they left a few scraps of
the original concept intact(free work!) the magic
would remain. But it doesn't work that way. Sun
has broken the spell with their tampering.
Sun *doesn't* get it. The GPL/OS licenses
aren't just frivilous word associations to
"get what we want" like most corps are used
to. The licenses are a manifestation of the *honest* beliefs of millions. Whipping up a
self-indulgant license like a cup of instant coffee ain't the same thing!
I haven't seen this said before so....
Netscape attempted an open source release. They said very clearly that they controled the code, but if they ever mishandled that responsibility the community was specifically free to fork the code. Code, not API.
But Netscape had nothing to loose. A functional equivalent of their product was being distributed free for major platforms, and the code was of such a quality and age that the developers who worked on the project started by rewriting portions of it. Also, Netscape had already been making much of it's money selling other products and support.
Sun, on the other hand, has invested a great deal in products that are largly unequaled. To truely contribute these projects to the community would be very risky. They are not interested in being relagated to merely a support company.
The community may also make them a bit nervous. This RFE requests Linux support in addition to MS Windows and Solaris. (Link is to JDC, requires free registration.) The RFE was submitted on Dec 08, 1997. Since then, it has accumulated over 400KB of supporting comments becoming the top RFE by a lead of 3729 votes (total 4476). It is still unsatisfied. Sun can't support Linux any more than it could support Mac. (Mac support [by Sun] was dropped as of Java 1.0) With an open source project, this would be no problem. The primary developer simply says, "If you want it that badly, write it." The developer can say this because if the community does write it, but the developer rejects their work, the community can fork the code. But, of course, Sun isn't open source....
sklein
if your life passes before your eyes when you die, does that include the part where your life passes before your eyes?
There is (at least) two way to look at it:
1. If the answer to your question is YES then we can't die because this include the part where your life passes before your eyes, which itself include the part where your life... infinite recursion.
2. Rincewind: "Does our life pass before our eyes before dying?"
DEATH:"YES, THAT IS CALLED LIVING"
;)
This is from Dicsworld: "The last continent" (this may be not the exact wording i don't have the book at hand, but this is the idea).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Did you read the pages? Apparently not. No one actually argued about the profits. Only about the right to fork. It's time to wake up form that dream brother...
Nobody's called sun a Nazi yet. This discussion is still active.
Actually, isn't it any mention of Hitler, or Nazis that ends the discussion, with the first one to bring it up the loser of the discussion? Anyone got a local copy of the net.legends FAQ with that in it? Who made that law anyway?
Sure.. I like to get paid too.
:) But I could also fix the bug,
Nevertheless, I don't see that Sun has taken anything away from you. You're free not to fix bugs in Sun's source code.
For my money, I feel I am better off.. *compared
with closed source* If I'd rather 'do Suns
legwork for them' than maintain my own patches
or alter applications to workaround problems,
more power to me!
Just for perspective (and maybe offtopic), I just
spent a week determining that MS's DAO dll has a
memory leak on every database insert (!). Now,
for me this is a dealkiller, there's almost
nothing I can do besides switch infrastructure.
If I had the source, I could still switch
infrastructure
or even step through the dll code & maybe find
an alternate code path that avoids the bug.
Oh well just rambling on a Friday.
Roland Conybeare
Oh come now, let's not get carried away. In order to do that they would have to:
Stop applying sound principles of software engineering to the design of API's
Start shipping broken software on a regular basic
I'm not going to continue this, you know where it's going
Sun may have its faults, but one of them is not giving us crap to work with, and I don't think they plan to start any time soon
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I would have added "ain't recursion neat", but I hit the 120 char limit.
What's even more interesting to contemplate...
You memory deteriorates as you grow older, does this final fast forward build itself from these corrupted memory blocks or only pick the good ones. If you go with the recursion part, your second life-in-a-second would be built on the rebuilding of a rebuilding of broken down blocks. This would change the interpretation leading to a completely different life (twice removed). Do this long enough and you might even believe you were a viking in some "past" life, or maybe a viking who thinks he's a sysadmin.
Of your two perspectives, I pick the second. (tho I haven't read any Niven(?))
+&x
Having a smoking section in a resturant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
I think Dana has it right, you can have a non-peeing section in a pool, but the pee still drifts over there from the peeing section...much like when you sit in a restaurant's "non smoking" section, you are frequently greeted with tobacco odors. IMO the ventilation and ceiling height has a lot to do with this also. I notice in establishments that have higher ceilings and ceiling fans, the non-smoking section is noticeably more pleasant than say a small pub where the AC is broke. This from a smoker.
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
...
TCL can run untrusted code too. It also runs on more platforms than Java. There are TCL plugins for browsers and you can even bury TCL/TK in your C/C++ programs to do gui and event work -- making your source almost 100% retargetable with very little hassle. They also have a HUGE amount of extensions from DB to networking.
And the source is there. www.scriptics.com
Check it out, dude.
P.S. I'm sure I'm missing other languages (Perl maybe?) but I'm too lazy to check.
Ok, since everyone is talking about all the
d e/bugs/4156278.html
things that could happen with the SCSL, I
thought it might be a good time to tell you
all a real problem with the current Java API
and how Sun interacts with developers.
I have been trying to get Sun to fix the
Runtime.exec() API for more than a year.
If you are a Java developer, you probally
already know what I am talking about. The
exec() method does not provide a useful
way to set env vars or to exec() a process
with a current directory other than the one
the JVM was started in.
If you are a JDC member you can read all
about it at this URL. (Sorry, if you
can not view this URL, but Sun will not
let people look at Java bug reports without
joining the JDC and agreeing to a license).
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugPara
I submitted this bug report on July 10, 1998
and it was not "reviewed" until June 28, 1999.
It was then shelved for another 3 months when
they decided to "fix" the problem. Now comes
the tricky part. There is no real information
about how they intend to "fix" this bug, and
the reviewer mentions that they are not even
going to fix "all" of the problems with this
API, just the current directory problem. So
I still have no real feedback and I will have
to wait until the new release of the JDK to
see how they decided to "fix" this bug. There
is something really wrong here. This
kind of crap would never happen on a real
Open Source project.
Mo DeJong
Linux has never done anything innovative *EVER*. Catch a clue people. It takes like millions of dollars and standards made by people who get paid money so they can live to do something INNOVATIVE.
Linux takes those OPEN STANDARDS and OPEN APIs provided by companies like Sun and turns them into something useable and friendly and fun.
But Linux, when it comes right down to it, is IMPLEMENTATION of INNOVATION. Sure, Linux adds plenty of hints and hacks and documentation. But all the Technology in Linux is TAKEN from the real Innovating sources (aka Sun, IEEE, ISO, IETF, SCO, SGI, ANSI, BSD (well CSRG), and hell EVEN Microsoft -- if you can believe it).
So grow up, kiddies!@#
I don't think that anyone disagrees that programmers should have control over their code. Simply that it is better to license it under an open license than a proprietary one so others can use it for whatever they like. This insures that you're code becomes as good as it can be, unless of course it already is, in which case you (and your users) have nothing to worry about.
Many politic philosophers think that, regardless of the economic background (limited or unlimited supplies) or anything else, there are fondamentals premisses of Communism (or rather, Marxist Socialism) which lead automatically to totalitarianism. It means that Communism may be very sympathetic at first look, but is definitively flawed.
Carl Popper has been the pionner of this thesis. He's one of the more influential epistemologists of this century. To summarize (a huge lot
Another interesting source for Marxism refutation is the ground breaking "Black Book of Communism" first published in France and now available in english from Harvard University Press. It's a much more factual approach of Communism flaws than Popper's thesis. It's not only the first comprehensive survey of the Soviet era genocides and other forms of horror, but it also sustains a fundamental refutation of Communism. In the authors' POV, those horrors happened not as a side effect failure of Communism, but as a constituent part of Communism. Communism implies genocide, exactly as Nazism implies genocide.
You wrongly said:
If you GPL something, and then sell it to me. I am not allowed to redistribute it.
that is 100% untrue. I can sell you my (or anyone's) GPL code for 100 BILLION dollars, and you can resell it for 2 cents to the next guy.
Or vice versa: I can sell it to you for $1, and you resell it to someone else for $100.
Nothing stops you. THAT is the point.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
You've made very good points.
If you read some of the best reasoned arguments with Bill Joy here, you'll notice many people (like me) who are glad *some* access to source is more freely available.
This isn't the 'argument' though.
The argument is against the PR machine claiming the license is something it isn't.
So far, the debate seems to have generated some very good arguments - pro and anti. You'll note that the 'anti' is aimed mainly at this dishonesty.
The way I see it the only good open/free software licenses are GPL and LGPL. The others hurt either the open source community or a business. Case in point: I'm a big corporation (IBM for example), I contribute to bsd/x-licensed(or scsl) project, not taking it into closed source, then some other company comes along, takes my work and everybody elses, add some 'killer' feature steals my service deals, and my investment in the project (company + project both screwed). Or a company just comes into to a bsd/x project takes it closed source, adds killer feature(s), my project doesn't have as many interested developers or businesses. The BSD fanatics are always going "Our license is more business friendly", but I don't see it. With GPL or LGPL, business and community are protected, with BSD, most of the money goes to proprietary solutions. With (L)GPL the money goes to companies actually supporting the project and developers. Granted most BSD projects are doing relatively well, but I don't really see big service contracts and open source co-existing.
-- d'arcy poirot
YES
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
Hmmmmmm, that's actually a quote attributed to Stallman, NOT Joy.
Dave
CHAORD = pleasant B.S.? Please...
.rso/ know what the word means. But hopefully, that will change =P
A Chaord exists in the phase between CHAos and ORDer. It's any complex, adaptive, self-regulating system capable of constant learning and evolution. Like VISA. Like the Internet. Like Linux. Unlike any "for-stock" corporations.
Allow me to repeat:
VISA. ($1.2 trillion in sales last year.) It's an info-age corporation with 30 years experience, growing 20% every year past booms bubbles busts bear bulls. No IPO's, take-overs, buy-outs, trade-outs, shake-outs, raids. Why? It's owned by its members. Shared in "non-transferable rights of participation". Dee Hock, who founded VISA, wanted to extend ownership to merchants and cardholders, but it wasn't possible at the time. Had it been, he believes it would be four times more powerful today.
Key to Visa's success is chaos/organized *open* structure that attracts the by far most valuable (and least used) resource on earth: human ingenuity.
call it "chaorganization". read about it here here here
SCSL will have great difficulty enabling any true chaord, because in the end, their "community" is responsible Sun's shareholding owners. Sun's aim is to first achieve ubiquity, and then leverage proprietary advantage. It's a shame, because JINI, especially, seems really cool.
CHAORD is the keyword to the most fruitful integration of "open source" and profitable business in the long run. RHAT missed it. Andover.net missed it. (chaords don't do IPO's) It's shocking that so few
Francis Hwang
Do domain names matter?
Godwin's Law states that as a Usenet discussion continues, the probability that Nazism will be mentioned approaches one.
a w.html, among others.
This was intended as a good-natured way of saying that a conversation has probably lived out its useful life by that point, although people have twisted it around ever since to make it say that mentioning Nazism automatically ends a discussion.
As if such a thing were possible....
http://www.netmeg.net/jargon/terms/g/godwin_s_l
--
As far as I can see:
RMS _thinks_ disadvantage of some code being closed outweights advantage of additional stimuli for developers while Bill Joy _believes_ otherwise. Neither of them can prove his point so we'll just have to wait. I'm personally rooting for RMS because, well, he's not trying to get rich off me and I'm a bit of an idealist I guess. Is there anything else to add to the argument? I really don't think so, correct me if I'm wrong..
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
This is patently untrue, as anyone who has actually read What is Free Software? knows. The only criticisms the FSF has of the BSD license are:
- It doesn't keep the software free (i.e., it can be proprietarized at any time, without the consent of the authors).
- It previously had the "obnoxious advertising clause," which lives on in software licensed under older versions of the BSD license.
The FSF has always conceded that the BSD license is a Free Software license; it's just not a copyleft license.--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
The GPL is hardly readable. The little notice that points to a "COPYING" file does not count. The "COPYING" file is page after page of legal talk that boils down to "You can't use this in anything that adds any more restrictions than the GPL. The GPL applies to all derivative works of this software."
They can keep some stewardship over java in this crucial early years. They can also stop the terrible duplication of all those people, commercial and opensource that are currently working on rebuilding java from the ground up.
That way sun can also make some money as java passes through them without the angst (they are going to loose control over it eventually).
But personally:
In my opinion the GPL protects my programming effort from being exploited by others who would otherwise, with their extensive resources and dominant industry position, easily co-opted my own small work into their proprietry products to their own financial advantage.
Redhat with linux, will always be is in a very different position from Sun with BSD based Solaris. The original developers of linux will always have access to works derived from their source, whereas the BSD developers will have to pay for theirs.
http://www.airwindows.com/rotsos/index. html
;) and there is another way, and it is FREE.
Like it? Take it. It's an engine for generating entire universes, planets down to the 3dpi resolution, complete overwhelming amounts of synthetic data into the billions of gigabytes, and it's all generated from a 16M datafile and a series of extremely evil and effective hacks, and a profound desire for doing game optimizations and returning the results FAST FAST FAST so the game doesn't suck.
No, it's not fractal. Yes, IT IS GPL. It's actually not even C (I'm told it looks like Python code- it's a funky Mac language called REALbasic that kicks butt for rapid prototyping but is not itself free) but that makes no difference- it is GPLed, and it is entirely original.
Why isn't everybody doing it? Because it's too radical an idea to generate entire universes, whole planets entirely emergently, and then _explore_ them to find interesting places. Game developers usually want to write their 'maps' by hand, or at least edit them. In doing so, they limit themselves to little weenie maps
I don't know who else is out there ready to hit the world with genuinely innovative stuff under the GPL. I'm doing it. Why? Because I have no confidence in the ability of the U.S. legal system to protect me or my ideas. I have no confidence in business to be able to help me implement them. All the promises about innovating and making millions off of great ideas are all crap- that doesn't happen anymore, those days are over. And since the promise to the independent developer is a lie, I'm giving it away like crackdotcom gave away Golgotha when they went out of business- except I didn't go out of business. Take this stuff, do neat things with it, I certainly intend to. There will always be a version of it you can use in code.
GPL doesn't seem to produce new, original stuff, hell! _ALL_ the stuff I've GPLed has been new, and some of it has been original by any standard (mind showing me the other space based game universes with nineteen million individually plotted stars, most of which have specific and consistently repeatable planets and entire landscapes and resource maps? That's what this is).
I rushed this stuff into public view out of fear that patents were being written that touched some aspects of it. Any aspect- I don't labor under the misconception that patents make sense, or expect that anyone was duplicating the more large scale aspects. I also rushed it out there because of just such attitudes as yours. I wanted to prove them wrong, and continue to work at doing that. GPL is not a world of derivative crud. It is a philosophical statement, it is growing, and it is a way for a developer to be guaranteed freedom no matter what the commercial world might do to step on it or stop it. As the commercial world grows more and more poisonous, the number of people doing wholly original work and GPLing it will only grow.
do you think anyone on the ansi committee is interested in your opinions C++'s future? java is not an os it must be the same everywhere or it is useless. whether it's sun or a committee makes no difference.
I bought shrink wrapped Caldera OpenLinux because I wanted the install support. It was useless. Caldera's support dept took three weeks to come up with a solution to a hosed lilo.conf. comp.os.linus.caldera took seven hours.
Next I submitted an XFree86 problem. It has been three months and I've yet to get a solution from them.
Of course, RedHat is not Caldera. But, tech support by and large is of the same quality. At least in my experience.
The GPL serves the purpose of uniting a community with a common problem: the lack of an acceptable piece (where acceptable may mean free in the speech sense or cheap in the beer sense) of software. This may not be RMS's intent, but such a purpose is served by the GPL nevertheless. To ensure maximum participation, the GPL places few restrictions on redistribution: only that derived works are also distributed under the GPL as well. This ensures that the code gets into the hands of as many people as possible. To be fair, the GPL guarantees that no one can profit 'unfairly' from the contributions of the community, that is, by selling non-GPL derived works. Now, this doesn't serve everyone's needs: there's lots of code that people might want that programmers aren't interested (en masse) in writing because it isn't something THEY need. Unless there is some financial reward, such software won't get written. But, in the free market, money easily gets exchanged for code written with licences different from the GPL. RMS may consider the terms of such licenses a bad deal, but enough people don't that a venture to write such code can be profitable. And, unlike RMS, I have no moral objection to using such code (though I will attest to the generally poor quality, when community peer review is not available). I had submitted a GPL-variant a while back (the Transition GPL or TGPL) to Slashdot (thanks for the feedback!) which allowed derived works to be folded back into the originator's code (that gets linked with non-free code and distributed) TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE COMMUNITY (which might be none at all). RMS was generous enough to discuss this idea with me, and the results of that discussion were encouraging. The point is that I seriously doubt that there is a single license that serves everyone's needs. Some non-GPL licenses serve the needs of enough people that the code to which they apply gets sufficient support to ensure sustainment. Regards, Rene S. Hollan (posting anon.)
The GPL serves the purpose of uniting a community with a common problem: the lack of an acceptable piece (where acceptable may mean free in the speech sense or cheap in the beer sense) of software. This may not be RMS's intent, but such a purpose is served by the GPL nevertheless.
To ensure maximum participation, the GPL places few restrictions on redistribution: only that derived works are also distributed under the GPL as well. This ensures that the code gets into the hands of as many people as possible. To be fair, the GPL guarantees that no one can profit 'unfairly' from the contributions of the community, that is, by selling non-GPL derived works.
Now, this doesn't serve everyone's needs: there's lots of code that people might want that programmers aren't interested (en masse) in writing because it isn't something THEY need. Unless there is some financial reward, such software won't get written.
But, in the free market, money easily gets exchanged for code written with licences different from the GPL. RMS may consider the terms of such licenses a bad deal, but enough people don't that a venture to write such code can be profitable. And, unlike RMS, I have no moral objection to using such code (though I will attest to the generally poor quality, when community peer review is not available).
I had submitted a GPL-variant a while back (the Transition GPL or TGPL) to Slashdot (thanks for the feedback!) which allowed derived works to be folded back into the originator's code (that gets linked with non-free code and distributed) TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE COMMUNITY (which might be none at all). RMS was generous enough to discuss this idea with me, and the results of that discussion were encouraging.
The point is that I seriously doubt that there is a single license that serves everyone's needs. Some non-GPL licenses serve the needs of enough people that the code to which they apply gets sufficient support to ensure sustainment.
Regards,
Rene S. Hollan (posting anon.)
Those communist societies owned things too. It's quite easy to look stupid in the eyes of people who know better (as you so nicely put it), isn't it?
:)
I've read a good bit of Marx in my time (Communst Manifesto, Manuscrpts of Economics of 1844 (something like that), and some of capitalism. I'm right now reading a bit of Mills', Principles of a Political Economy. If you read Marx's real essays, not the summery that CM provides, FSF's goals do have some striking simularities. I wouldn't label it communism without thorough research, and I wouldn't label communism as evil either (though ESR seems to). I actually like Mills' ideas far better than any socialism, capitalism, communism, or facism (of course).
The ideas Marx proposed, as were ideas RMS proposed, made people involved take notice, despise them, but could not neglect them. Perhaps not see the same means for the end, but see base theories. Neither is bad, though both could be a bit to extreme. To bad we can't reserect Mills'.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
It's not as if we can demand the industry go straight to open source. What, from a marketing point of view the only advantage is that they can "ride the trend." Why then would they even want to? You forget that companies these days, sadly, are not in the game to make quality software. They're in it to make money.
,reverse qq;):zrekcahzlrepzrehtonaztey; );"
I'm happy that a big company like Sun is doing something as huge as the SCSL. The SCSL is actually a reasonably open liscence. While I'd love to see them use the LGPL or some such, I can wait.
The idea of open source, despite all the media glitz, is still pretty foreign to companies. Let them test the waters for a few years. Resistance is futile, I suppose.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
perl -e "print join q( ), split(q.z.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
What do you think drives Sun to do this?
,reverse qq;):zrekcahzlrepzrehtonaztey; );"
It's certainly not the kindness of the human heart. If you think money isn't an issue here, then you're in denial.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
perl -e "print join q( ), split(q.z.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
> i think the idea of ownership is most closely linked to the notion of stewardship. things that aren't owned often suffer from the "tragedy of the commons."
Fragmentation issues aside, free software is really more like the opposite of the "tragedy of the commons". Grazing land or physical resources in general can be over-used and used-up, but source code can't be used-up. In fact, if you count bug reports and other user contributions, the more people that use it, the more of it there is to be used.
Yep I noticed a bit of ambiguity there too. What the hell is this sig going for? The (I'm offended by you polluting my environment angle), which the above guy noted. Or alternatively the everyone pees in the pool anyway so what the hell's the point of prohibiting it in some area of that pool angle?
perhaps this is not very insightful, but i think that an awful lot depends on whether you have existing code, and Intellectual Property locked into that, or if you are starting from scratch.
if you have 20 years of investment in code base IP then you end up doing what Sun Micro have done. maybe it is very hard to get a reasonable value proposition if you were to GPL it. and explaining to your shareholders might be hard -- it would be a bit of an earthquake.
if you are starting from scratch, however, on some toolkit that may be useful, or may not be (apache, linux & friends evolved into usefulness) then a much more open base is an easy decision to make. you have no prior investement in IP, and you can build a business model you like.
it's worth noticing that the most headline Open Source projects seem to be "building blocks". i would count operating systems, web servers, languages in that category.
Sane stuff is for the users (and other developers) to decide. It can include both software issues (features, bugs, supported platforms) and development models (especially "cathedral" vs. "bazaar" models). Where dual licensing is possible, it may even include licensing terms.
The key really isn't forking so much as it's the opportunity to re-merge divergant development paths down the road. SCSL is a non-forkable license -- it's not possible to fork the code base, though, as Mr. Joy rather ineptly points out, it is possible to "fork" the feature set, buy reimplementing from scratch. Incidentally, one fact he declines to mention in his commentary is that Sun makes a not-very-thinly veiled threat to use its other IP rights -- namely patents -- to go after anyone who attempts to pursue independent development.
What's interesting to note is that Joy's other license is a fork-only license. BSD allows software to be incorporated into other projects under different licensing terms (includin proprietary terms). In other words, it greatly facilitates forking. What it does not provide for is re-merging these divergent development threads downstream. It's possible that the BSD license is, in large part, to blame for the oft-cited forking of Unix.
The GNU GPL, and other equivalent "Copyleft" licenses, are among the few which provide the essential facilties to both allow forking (users have rights to modify and redistribute modifications) and re-merging of divergent paths: all derived works must be developed under the same terms as the original work, and are therefor fully legally capable of being reintegrated.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Hmm... I was referring to the 'Babboon' Document Object architecture for Gnome which uses CORBA as opposed to COM. I guess it would run on multiple *nix boxen, so that was my mistake. But it still isn't cross platform enough for me :-)
One factor I didn't point out was NPSR and XPCOM from the Mozilla effort. They are putting together some interesting stuff which could be used as the basis for a true cross platform solution. Someone pointed me (via email) to the Bamboo project which is an attempt to produce a cross platform pluggable module architecture. It looks rather interesting as the basis for what I am talking about and it uses NPSR and they are looking at XPCOM.
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Absolutely. I _have_ lost my belief in selling good ideas for money. I also don't believe people getting rich by gambling on internet startups are a good thing. I've been reading articles and analyses (some linked from Slashdot) suggesting that the tremendous emphasis on cash-out is leading to profusion of internet businesses which are not remotely viable businesses, in which the only point is to cash out, and no sound business plan or procedures are in place. Businesses which are experiencing 130% turnover in five years (if that!). Businesses which, although they have no plan for the future beyond the cash-out, although they turn over like a revolving door, are buying up intellectual property at a staggering rate through building patent portfolios to prevent anyone else from doing work comparable to theirs- without doing *squat* to see to it that they will be longterm stable businesses able to _deliver_ on those patented benefits to the consumer for years.
So on the one hand, business seems to be trying to stake out permanent claims to areas of computing. On the other hand, it seems to be so in love with cash-out that these permanent claims risk becoming ghost towns (nuclear waste zones?) when the companies cash out, get bought and cease caring about being able to deliver on their promises- producing large areas of computing where nothing is happening, but the 'land' is owned by whoever bought out the company that used to be there, and No Trespassing signs are up.
THIS is what your getting rich truly means in the modern day. Capitalism may not have failed- indeed, communism did not fail AS A CONCEPT, so how could Capitalism fail? But OUR VERSION of Capitalism is in the process of crashing and burning.
I opt out. If it was a military or civil matter, I might be throwing grenades, so bitterly do I agree with what's going on. It is not, it is an economic matter, so I am doing everything I can to aid the biggest enemy of the current Capitalism that I can find. I figure that's the free software movement, since it is solely concerned with establishing products that work, available to all, and that are impossible to withhold for economic punishment. So I'm doing what I can with that. It may not be the greatest thing to ever hit the world, but I know what I want to do with it.
"This shows that the only reason Sun is opening up their source for any reason is so that they can get developers to fix their code, without really having to pay them."
I don't think so. I agree that Sun has tried to get some "open source" press through this agreement but I don't feel they really expect to get major help from the outside. They are not cutting down their OS programming force. Look at Mozilla; a lot of people have contributed but the bulk of the work has been done by Netscape (now AOL) people. Even with Linux, the bulk of the work is done by a relativly small group of people. At least Sun is a step ahead of MS. MS publishes some of their APIs but does not let you see source or even explain how they are implemented. Half of their APIs are barely even documented at all.
No can really expect Sun to embrace Linux until Linux really catches up in high level scalability on Sparc based systems. Sun's whole reason for Solaris is to sell hardware. They use the same model that has been around forever. They don't want people using Linux because they are either using it on non-Sun hardware (bad for them) or using it on Sun hardware but not paying for support/services from Sun (bad for them again). Sun doesn't want the low end market. They want to make sure that people don't start thinking that Linux on a dual PIII can run the same enterprise system that a big fact mutliprocessor Ultra Sparc can do.
Sort of open or sort of closed, Sun just can't win. If you used Solaris and you found a bug but you couldn't track it down and fix it yourself, you would be angry at them. If you could check the source and fix it and get it into the next gen, you still wouldn't be happy because you did work for a corporation for free whiel they make money off of it. If they switched to Linux and used the GPL, Sun would have to spend a lot of time and money putting in all the high performance features they already have in Solaris (retro fitting an OS is not fun!). And then give it away. There is a big difference between somebody devoting their personal time to an Open Source project and a company devoting lots of money to an open source project. "Fellow board members...I propose a project that will make us zero dollors in new revenue and cost hundreds of man hours but will really boost our reputation with young programmers! And it's the right thing to do!" They could save the money by switching to Linux and waiting for a group they have no control over (the Linux Kernel gang) to get the features in while their OS performance and thus their hardware worth drops. They lose again.
What do you expect? Sun is a corporation! They pay their programmers lots of money. It is a pretty good idea for them to take come control over what they make since they have to support it and it carries their name on it. If they just plain opened up everything they risk really bad versions of what was their stuff getting out and causing big problems. Imagine the E-bay disaster only this time the change that causes the crash was made by some random guy on the net with his own modified Solaris distro and an e-bay employee downloaded it and installed it. But is was a version of Solaris, right? Even though this wouldn't have been their fault, Sun would still get killed in the press.
All the Linux support people run into the same issues. RH can't support Slackware because they don't have the time or money to figure out what somebody else did to Linux. They only know what they did to it.
-- soldack
Sun's aim is to first achieve ubiquity, and then leverage proprietary advantage
oops! maybe not.. Sun might *not* want to be a nasty bully like Microsoft because that would very bad for Sun's brand name(TM). And of all the hairballed IP complexity SUNW is compelled to manage, Sun's Trademark is the most simple, meaningful and valuable of their (non-human) assets.
Which leads to two points:
b.) The attempt to "own" "open" software standards is seriously risky to Sun's good reputation. Could a smarter risk prove more rewarding? With a reconcieved software "ownership" model, Bill Joy is certainly smart enough invent a way so jini can "make money", and Sun can further its reputation as a company that "gets it".
a.) "Chaordic®" is a registered trademark of the Chaordic Alliance. They might not be policing it, and that might be a Good Thing(TM). Still, it's a most meaningful word, and it's in everyone's best interest *not* to dilute it with improper use. Including Sun's [see b.)]
Richard Gabriel's claim that the SCSL is the legal instrument that creates the "chaord" seems to misrepresent the process so generously outlined by Dee Hock. How so? Well answer this: how did Sun arrive at this legal document? Why does it catch all this flak? Are "all affected parties" included in this week's process to arrive at the democratic principles by which all changes to jini are made? How is "ownership" equitably distributed among all jini/java participants? What or whose purpose does the SCSL serve?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that SUNW is trying to impose centralized top-down command-and-control authority, quite contrary to decentralized chaordic principles. Calling it "chaordic" without qualification adds insult to injury. Answer this: how would Sun react to an analogous misuse of Sun's proprietary trademark? I'd really like an answer.
Still, it's extremely encouraging that a leading software company like Sun is taking inspiration from the chaordic model only partly realized by VISA. Rewards will be great for any company that honestly embraces it. But taking this step half-heartedly while abusing a valuable trademark will fool none but Sun(TM).
Software and money DO mix well. Ask most of the highly paid engineers out there, I'm sure they'll tell you.
Sometimes I begin to think that people play the "captialism sucks" card because they don't know much about the system & how to use it for good.
-Stu
eom
Hmm...Well, actually I guess it means that smoking sections really bug me because the smoke drifts everywhere anyway (darned Brownian motion!) Would you go swiming in a pool that had a sign saying, "Absolutely no peeing in the non-peeing section." rather than just "Absolutely no peeing?"
(Sorry for any confusion!)
Dana
re-reading this full-moon post gives me a bad taste of hoof in mouth.. For all I know, Sun is working with the Chaordic Alliance, and really trying to make a difficult and radical transition. They should be encouraged. Click this, and search "damn" for far more tempered and fair view of Sun in transition..
zerone@pobox.com