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Debian and Nexenta collide

Debian and Nexenta collide

Posted Nov 10, 2005 11:16 UTC (Thu) by slef (subscriber, #14720)
In reply to: Debian and Nexenta collide by ajross
Parent article: Debian and Nexenta collide

CDDL is not a free software licence. It restricts the actions of support agents and other similar people. At least as far as the debian free software guidelines go, that seems like discrimination against a significant field of endeavour to me. I don't know how that sits with FSF or OSI, but who cares? I don't want copyright licences trying to tell me any agent contracts can't cover the software I supply. These days, copyright law is so strong that I fear it would override my commercial agreements. Anyone know whether that's unfounded?

There is no good reason for the support disclaimer clause to be drafted in the obnoxious absolute terms that it is. It looks like a drafting bug. Why won't Sun fix it?


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Debian and Nexenta collide

Posted Nov 15, 2005 11:06 UTC (Tue) by KotH (subscriber, #4660) [Link]

CDDL might not be a free license, but neither is GPL. Both restrict their users in a way that quite a lot of people do not like. Yes, you might now argue that GPL does that to ensure that the source will be always public. But that view is shortsighted. Just have a look how many problems the BSD people have with GPL software, although they write open source software too. Or as an other example, have a look at the problems the MPlayer project had with GPL until all code it used was relicensed under GPL. Or to cite Arpi on an never published interview for "Brave GNU World" on the question what his biggest problems were when developing MPlayer: "The GPL"

Debian and Nexenta collide

Posted Nov 15, 2005 12:44 UTC (Tue) by slef (subscriber, #14720) [Link]

I don't know what personal definition of "free software" you are using, but GPL is free software: that is, it follows the debian free software guidelines. By restricting support contracts, the CDDL is not. Sun want control of the support market to themselves and the CDDL is one tool to help them achieve that.

The MPlayer flameboys don't much interest me, but I wonder how you can cite something never published and expect anyone to accord it much weight.

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