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A few notes on the OpenSolaris release
A few notes on the OpenSolaris release
Posted Jun 16, 2005 5:39 UTC (Thu) by robla (subscriber, #424)Parent article: A few notes on the OpenSolaris release
LWN wrote: It doesn't seem to have occurred to Sun that [a joint copyright assignment] might reduce the size of the "vibrant developer community" that it wishes to create.
...or, perhaps it was a tradeoff. Perhaps it was the exact same tradeoff that the Free Software Foundation also makes with software it develops. It's a pretty standard practice for very good reasons that a good lawyer would be able to explain to you.
Methinks you should give Sun's lawyers and business people a little benefit of the doubt when it comes to thinking about these things. They may not have made the decision that you would have made, but I can pretty much guarantee they've thought about it.
Rob
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A few notes on the OpenSolaris release
Posted Jun 16, 2005 6:14 UTC (Thu) by jamesh (subscriber, #1159) [Link]
There are a few differences between the Sun agreement and the FSF agreement though:
- The FSF agreement is a copyright assignment rather than a joint copyright agreement (although the FSF licenses the code back to you under non-restrictive terms).
- The FSF agreement includes a promise that they will release the code only under a copyleft license. If they break the promise, the assignment contract is void.
There are enough differences that you can't say that it is the same tradeoff. Whether this will affect the community that builds around the code is another matter.
A few notes on the OpenSolaris release
Posted Jun 16, 2005 6:17 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
However with the assignment to the FSF you can be assured that your code will only be used in free software. Here Sun can use it in its own product that will compete with yours. And they can actually "fork" your code for usage in their own totally propritary products.