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What if?What if?Posted Nov 13, 2006 18:47 UTC (Mon) by atai (subscriber, #10977)In reply to: What if? by shieldsd Parent article: Sun releases Java under GPLv2
Funny things is that, for software that has "high proprietary" values, like Java, the software is open-sourced/freed under the GPL license. For software that is low in such value, the software is often donated to the ASF under the Apache license...
For example, see all IBM's donations to the ASF. How many of them are still valuable as proprietary software? Will IBM open-source DB2 or Websphere under the Apache license? If IBM does open source them, today, then the GPL may be a more likely license than the Apache license or the BSD license. However, if IBM does so in ten years, then the latter licenses will be more likely...
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What if? Posted Nov 13, 2006 20:19 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Nothing funny, it's quite natural. If a company cares about the software and plans further releases, it doesn't want its competitors using and improving the code without giving it back. If a company wants to spread the software as is (e.g because it works with certain hardware or requires the best processors, network switches etc), the software is released under a license that allows incorporation into proprietary code.Basically, GPL is good for stimulating improvement, and more permissive licenses are good for spreading the technology quickly in its present form. Note that the later can likely lead to forks, especially if the technology is not backed by an official standard. GPL is more fork resistant since all good bits can be recombined. Sun is thinking long term and wants to avoid forks. Java is not hardware specific by design. Hence the choice.
What if? Posted Nov 14, 2006 15:28 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] There are also patent implications -- the Apache license and GPL handle patents differently. The GPL patent clause is more weighted toward the interests of the upstream software author.
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