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Corporate vs Open Source:Sun Stealing Blackdown?
An anonymous submittor droped this in the inbox: "A Linux Today story talks about how Sun repackaged Blackdown's porting of JDK 1.2.2 and called it their own. Even the script wrappers for this thing are the ones Steve Bryne wrote for the Blackdown effort and even have the name of the Blackdown developers in it. This is ridiculous! Is this what happens when corporate meets open source?" We all knew something like this was going to happen eventually. Hopefully Sun and Inprise will realize their mistake and take steps to correct it. If they do not, though...what steps can the Blackdown team take to protect their work?
The Blackdown folks did release their code back to Sun you know. And, the Blackdown project is not an open source project, they license the reference implementation of the JDK from Sun and modify it to run on Linux. Thats why its called the "Java Linux Porting project". Everyone should consider it a good thing that Sun is now taking interest. That means we will finally get a good JVM for Linux, something we have needed for a very long time.
There's already an active thread on this at blackdown's java-linux mail list. Blackdown developers, some Inprise developers, and just folks. My impressions:
- Inprise knows they started with Blackdown's work
- The initial PR did not mention Blackdown. Could have been the stupid marketing departments
- The Inprise folks say they are mentioning and crediting Blackdown in press interviews at the Java conference in NY
- everyone agrees more communications between the teams would help
- The SCSL apparently allows Sun to do anything it wants with any code provided back to them.
And BTW, a new release candidate of blackdown's port was released yesterday!
I'm concerned about Sun, too. Don't attribute to deliberate malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity [paraphrasing Pournell]. But keep your powder dry [anon.]
It says quite clearly on a page pointed to by the Blackdown FAQ about licensing that Sun owns all changes made under the non-commercial internal use agreement that the Blackdown team have agreed to.
If they object, having accepted the agreement, then that is their silly fault, frankly. To be honest though, I don't expect they will object as long as Sun give credit where it is due, and I imagine that their not doing so immediately is just a screw-up.
One of the things you're going to have to consider that these corporations have been dealing with TIGHTLY CLOSED source for the last several DECADES.
Any large corporation is very slow to change beneath it all (that's just the nature of the beast)--even though it would seem that they've changed thanks to marketing hype, etc.
If we voice our opinions (politely, preferably) about such things, most likely the changes will take place.
It's impossible to expect someone that has put nails into the top shelf of a cabinent for 20 years, to get up, go to another part of the factory and start painting PERFECTLY.
It takes JOB TRAINING. Who trains the corporations? The public does. Who trains the public? The media does. Who trains the media? Hmmm I'll stop before I start ranting..
Just raise the 'penalty flag' tell them the mistake politely (especially in public), and wait a bit. They'll learn.
With thanks,
Tenement
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At first, when reading this, I decided that I should start to abandon my Java work. Then I realized the awful truth of the world.
Every place I've worked has happily used proprietary tools.
I work for a consulting company. 1/3 of the people do mainframe work, about 1/2 work on VeeBee, and the remainder do training or work (like I do) in Java, C/C++, UNIX, etc. Our business is based on the fact that companies produce proprietary languages like VB, Powerbuilder, Delphi, Visual C++, etc. They may be based on standard languages, but they are NOT standards except to themselves.
As long as there is money to be made in Java, I'll end up continuing to work in it. I might really want to be doing projects in Python or C++, but I'll end up working in Java because that's where the money is. And it's the same way for business. My clients don't care if Java is proprietary or not as long as their web-apps get done on time, just like they've always approached client server development.
So, in the end, it doesn't matter to the people who really matter--the people who pay for my paycheck. If you want this to change, the staff people in these corporations need to convince their managers that only standards-based and open-source products should be used for development.
Chris
While your hypothetical is correct, GPLed code has the feature (or failure depending on your POV) that it forces derived code to be GPLed.
The code in question was not GPLed. Therefore the point is moot. In fact it was originally based on Sun code which was licensed with the requirement that changes became the property of Sun. Sun apparently used this to their advantage, as one might expect a business to do. You may argue the political sagacity of their move, but it seems perfectly legal to this non-lawyer.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
I'm sure it happens all the time, but I doubt that people are stealing whole programs. The sticky area of the GPL, and an area that I've personally ventured into, is "micro-theft" of open source code.
:) What do you guys think? What qualifies as a GPL violation?
Here's an example: About two years ago I was developing an application for a client (who will remain nameless), and the app needed to have some simple word processing abilities (mostly just font support and page formatting abilities). While I got that portion of the application developed properly, there was a kludge in the code that I didn't particularly care for and which was slightly buggy. About 3 weeks after I wrote that portion of the app, I went over to a friends house and found him trying to track down a bug in a GPL'd word processor (which will also remain nameless). Since he had it open anyway, I decided to take a look and see how the author of that program had handled the bit I'd kludged. I liked the way the author had done it and a whopping 15 lines of his code ended up in my program (with just a little bit of editing).
So the question is, did I violate the GPL? What if I had just been "inspired" by his code and re-written a similar bit of code from memory? Could/should I be sued? Can I be forced to open the source? (I actually sold the program and all rights to the client, so I couldn't do that anyway) Where is the "magic line" here?
In case you can't tell, I've been wondering about these things for quite a while but this is really the first opportunity I've seen to bring them up
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Blackdown mistakenly thought that Java was the next big thing, and that for Linux to remain viable it *needed* Java. They reasonably agreed to whatever license Sun would grant, simply to get a JDK available for Linux before Linux missed the bandwagon completely. A reasonable, indeed selfless act, which, had Java really been as important as Sun convinced many of us it would be, would have been critical to Linux's success.
In hindsight it turns out to have been the other way around. Java, while a nice language in some respects, was basically just so much hype. Linux on the other hand quietly attracted 10-20 million users and snuck its way into corporate server rooms everywhere. It's growth rate appears to have not slowed down in the least, while Java languishes for lack of mindshare. Java needs Linux far more than Linux needs Java, and Sun successfully suckered good people into doint their work for them at no cost.
Very unfortunate, but a good lesson why one should really think twice, or even ten times, before contributing to a project under Sun's "community" license.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
No estabilshed company is a friend of open source.
Redhat, etc owe their existance to open source programs, but Sun, Oracle, HP, Corel and even Inprise are just using us to get what they want.
Perhaps IBM is different.. They have at least tried. Maybe SGI, too - it looks like they need Linux to survive, now.
But understand this: MS should no longer be the primary target of our flames, and matching Windows should no longer be the goal of our development projects.
With the DOJ and the press watching MS like a hawk, we need to refocus.
Linux is now, without a doubt the premier Desktop Unix thanks to GNOME and KDE nothing against *BSD, but Linux is slightly better here, if only because that is what most developers use.
Next year Ittanium (sp?) comes out. Linux will be ready, for sure, and it will probably run flawlessly sooner than Windows2000 - but that ain't the game any more.
World Domination, remember?
Next year Montery also arrives. I still havn't seen even any speculation on how well Linux will compare to that.
SCO, HP, Intel, IBM and Compaq makes a pretty impressive team - all (except SCO) have Linux projects, too. What's going to happen when Montery and Linux go head to head for the same space?
Don't think that "Montery will be high end, and Linux will take the low end", either. That is just market speak for not having the features, yet. Both Linux and FreeBSD will, I believe, be very close to Montery (and Solaris) on Intel by next year.
What's going to happen then? Can we rely on Red Hat and VA Linux's money to compete?
Don't forget, these companies aren't like MS. They make pretty good software (for the most part).
Things like StarOffice are dangerous to Open Source, because they give the power back to the companies - and yet they are just as cheap (to the consumer) as Open source.. until Sun changes the file format or something like that.
Maybe it is time to play the Windows card? Linux does operate well in a Windows environment, and Windows computers are easily converted to Linux. Perhaps we need more open source software that interoperates well with MS stuff. Samba is great, maybe we need something that can provide DCOM services?
My Enemy's enemy is my friend. Sun was a useful ally. Lets not get stabbed in the back.
Congratualtions Sun. You have _finally_ done what more than 1500 Java developers have clearly been asking you to do for two years, TO THE DAY.
Bug #4097810 was posted on December 8, 1997. The number one bugfix request (now request for enhancement) for the entire period, indeed the request that has had more votes than the rest of the top 25 requests COMBINED has been to treat Linux as a first tier platform, to handle the releases for Linux in-house, instead of the arm's length (although increasingly more direct) support that, to date, has been given to Blackdown.
Today's announcement is great. This is what many hundreds of Java developers have been looking forward to, and what Blackdown and Sun have been working towards. I think that Sun and Blackdown deserve kudos for achieving this excellent result.
The focus of clueless slashdotters, who literally don't know how Blackdown came to have access to the code in the first place, how much direct assistance Sun has given to Blackdown, and who haven't noticed that Blackdown is actively involved in what's happened today is on an equally uninformed opinion piece in LinuxToday.
Wake up people, this announcement is what Sun, Blackdown and hundreds of Java developers have looked forward to for years.
This story is not about open-source, it never was, Blackdown was working with confidential code from day one, and it is apparent from looking at Blackdown's site that today's announcement isn't a problem, it's just part of what they've been working towards.