Sun planning to redefine "open source"?

Posted Jul 30, 2003 16:52 UTC (Wed) by dwalters (guest, #4207) [Link]

> Mad Hatter will compete directly with Linux

My understanding is that Mad Hatter IS GNU/Linux, and like Lindows or Lycoris Desktop LX, it just doesn't include the name of the kernel in the name of the product.

Here's an eWeek article about Mad Hatter from September last year.

Here's a quote from the article:

The new client desktop, which is expected to be widely available in the first quarter of next year, will bring together off-the-shelf hardware, such as its Sun Ray thin client as the interface or a standard low-end desktop PC and open-source technology—namely the Linux operating system, the Mozilla browser, OpenOffice, the Evolution e-mail client and the GNOME desktop environment.

> but apparently users will be expected to rent it for $50 to $100 per year

Just like Lindows, you mean.

> Either something got misreported or they're intending to have very strange licensing.

Not at all. As long as they ship the source code along with the product, they can charge what they like, how they like, and they're in full compliance with the GPL.