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Busy busy busyboxBusy busy busyboxPosted Oct 2, 2006 10:01 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333)Parent article: Busy busy busybox
As for the trustfullness of FSF and such.. I've been following the GPL v3 process since it started, and despite a certain amount of initial scepticism I'm pretty impressed. Eben Moglen in particular has shown himself to be a statesman and a scholar and the GPL v3 review process is no hollow plebiscite. The FSF team has engaged, listened and responded to all the comments they have received, and the draft 2 text shows great improvement over the draft 1 text, especially concerning the stance on DRM.
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Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 11:29 UTC (Mon) by bertdouglas (guest, #29228) [Link] The interests of Sun are surely not aligned with those of individual software developers.
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 18:36 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] "The interests of Sun are surely not aligned with those of individual software developers."
Neither are the Linux developer's. The principal reason behind the hate for the DRM restrictions in the GPLv3 is because of the impact it may have on businesses that wish to use Linux code in 'user proof' devices.
Personally I would prefer developers to be alinged with the needs of their individual end users. ;-)
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 18:37 UTC (Mon) by PaulMcKenney (subscriber, #9624) [Link] So you are expecting Sun to relicense Solaris 10 under GPLv3?
Paul E. McKenney (my opinions, not necessarily those of my employer -- though given that this is a simple question, this disclaimer seems a bit redundant)
Sun, OpenSolaris and GPLv3 Posted Oct 2, 2006 20:14 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/hp_and_sun_partnering...
"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."
This doesn't mean they will but they are clearly considering that.
Sun, OpenSolaris and GPLv3 Posted Oct 2, 2006 21:32 UTC (Mon) by PaulMcKenney (subscriber, #9624) [Link] Thank you for the pointer! I had missed this.
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 20:38 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] No, not realy.
Sun doesn't have a problem with people using their code in binaries. For instance: kernel drivers. That is something that wouldn't work out to well under the GPL. Same thing with Java stuff.
They may do a permissive version of the GPLv3 so it operates in a similar fasion to the LGPL, but I still think that is unlikely. Just less unlikely.
What I am curious about right now, personally, is what remaining compatability issues would be between the CDDL and the current GPLv3 draft.
For instance one of the big reasons for the CDDL is the patent language. Sun wanted to make sure that when people used CDDL code that they would be protected from persecution by Sun for their hefty patent portfolio in regards to the code itself. So in a way the GPLv3's patent language is actually very _business_friendly_. (keeping in mind that the vast majority of businesses are small or medium sized and lack the resources to gather patent portfolios of their own).
This was a big deal between GPLv2 and CDDL license compatability.
Now I am curious about the compatability between the GPLv3 draft and the CDDL patent language, and any other incompatabilities.
I think that if the GPLv3 works out and if there are remaining compatability issues that Sun will actually want to make a CDDLv2 so that the GPLv3 will be compatable.
That way they don't have to worry about their 'IP' being sucked back into 'Linux kernel' (since GPLv3 is not going to be GPLv2 compatable) and it would encourage all those 'GPLv2 and newer' folks (which the majority of them are) to think very strongly about supporting Solaris as a primary target.
Then on the "Free software" side of things they gain indemification against a large number of patents by way of incorporating CDDL code in snippets back into projects and they gain extra encouragement for adoption of GPLv3. (If Sun likes it, then what would be the objection?)
Seeing how Ubuntu is alinged with Sun and Sun's willingness to discuss legal issues with Debian face to face... It would be interesting to see what sort of impact it would make in the 'linux community' if Debian was to release 'GNU/Solaris Debian' as a official port.
So you get this all of a sudden:
In a 100% GPLv3 compatable package.
Personally I feel that propriatory drivers are bad (Linux devs should be a bit more pro-active in this manner), but stable ABI is good (for the sake of end user's sanity rather then for technical reasons). As for ZFS and Dtrace, I don't care about ZFS, but Dtrace is nice. I like the Linux kernel and have no experiance with Solaris.
But for other people I think this move would garner a large amount of attention and support for Sun and for Solaris.
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 21:17 UTC (Mon) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] Everybody's expecting Sun to relicense Solaris under GPLv3. Theydesperately want a license that's incompatible with the Linux kernel, but otherwise widely used. They invented CDDL for this purpose but nobody else bit. GPLv3 is tailor-made for their purposes.
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 21:29 UTC (Mon) by alexbk (subscriber, #37839) [Link] Wouldn't Linux kernel then be... a little less relevant, with Solaris-based Ubuntu and Debian, for astart?
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 2, 2006 22:37 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] It can ultimately be very good or very bad for Linux kernel. Solaris kernel makes a nice counterpoint or foil against Linux development.
The Linux devs (not all of them, obviously) argue things like:
Meanwhile you have a whole group of people saying how wrong the kernel developers are.
IF (big if) the CDDL ends up compatable with GPLv3, or Sun dual licenses it or whatever then with Solaris they (the Linux kernel naysayers) automaticly get all the stuff that they've been bitching about being missing. Hopefully then they'll leave the Linux developers alone! Then in a couple years it will be obvious on weither or not the Linux developers are realy realy right in their stances on these sort of kernel-related issues.
If the Linux kernel developers are right on these technical issues and all these hippy 'GNU/OpenSolaris' users will find that Linux-based systems will far outstrip them in capabilities, usability, and performance. The Linux devs are then heralded as technical wondermen that they are and will garner a lot more support. (Linus powns joo)
If the Linux kernel developers are wrong then it will be obvious that 'The Emperor has no clothes!' and they will loose a huge amount of credibility and support. But it would be termporary, they would release the Linux 3.0 kernel and address the technical and developmental limitations of 2.6 and life would go on. It would just be another mistake like Linus trying to fight smp support or Linux adopting bitkeeper as the versioning software of choice.
Either way it's win-win in the long term.
That is until... HURD TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM IN 2025!!!! YOU ALL WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESTIANCE IS FUTILE! SURRENDER ALL COPYRIGHTS TO THE FSF!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 3, 2006 0:47 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > HURD TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM IN 2025!!!! You have a typo there. The year should be 2325. Sorry, it was too good to resist ;-)
Busy busy busybox Posted Oct 7, 2006 4:50 UTC (Sat) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] If the Linux kernel developers are right on these technical issues and all these hippy 'GNU/OpenSolaris' users will find that Linux-based systems will far outstrip them in capabilities, usability, and performance. The Linux devs are then heralded as technical wondermen that they are and will garner a lot more support.No need. Linux had outstripped Solaris by Linux 2.2 or thereabouts. I know, we ran boxen with Solaris (they crawled along), and migrating over to Red Hat got them to fly.
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