Thinking About GPL3... [LWN.net]

According to this entry in Jonathan Schwartz's weblog, Sun is considering GPLv3 for OpenSolaris. "We also recognize that diversity and choice are important - which is why we've begun looking at the possibility of releasing Solaris (and potentially the entire Solaris Enterprise System), under dual open source licenses. CDDL (which allows customer IP to safely comingle with Solaris source code) and under the Free Software Foundation's GPL3. It's early days, but we're looking at two things as we make that decision."

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Thinking About GPL3...

Posted Jan 30, 2006 21:30 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Safely commingle? They both require source sharing, which from a FUD-like perspective is 'unsafe' and from a sane perspective is right there in the license. Even while preaching interoperability, Schwarz seems willing to muddy the waters.

Still, it's a hopeful sign.

Thinking About GPL3...

Posted Jan 30, 2006 22:01 UTC (Mon) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]

The reference to "safe comingling" is a little muddled. Under the CDDL, individual files are considered the units of the license, whereas the GPL views the work as a whole as the licensed software. So, for example, where the GPL would forbid linking third party object code (or even source code under an incompatible license) into a distributable piece of softare, the CDDL is fine with it provided all the source code to the CDDL-derived files is provided under the CDDL.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is largely a philosophical issue. The CDDL has the practical advantage of flexibility in the face of proprietary software, at the risk of permitting abusive non-free licensing and lock-in, and with the downside of a more ambiguous notion of what is actually being licensed (the GPL is pretty clear and adamant about what "derived work" means, whereas the CDDL's use of "file" is a little fuzzy -- code can move between files and mutate in the process).