More DTrace envy [LWN.net]

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 16:13 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: More DTrace envy by paulj
Parent article: More DTrace envy

Some of the Linux copyright holders are dead. Some have merely vanished. One of them's a
company that tried to kill Linux a few years ago. In some cases we probably don't even have a
solid idea who the copyright holder is. Changing the license isn't a real possibility.

(The last time the license changed was in 1992, when it probably was possible to identify
everyone who'd contributed any code to Linux using a single person's fingers. Since then Linus
has clarified what his interpretation of the license is at various points, but these
clarifications aren't binding)

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More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 18:02 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

ISTR some kind of brouha, discussed on LWN I think, not so long ago about Linus changing the
Linux copyright to exclude the possibility of upgrading its GPLv2 to GPLv3 (it was claimed he
hadn't actually changed the licence, but that wasn't accepted all? I dont quite remember).

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 18:11 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Huh, nm. You covered the GPLv2 clarification. My bad for not reading.

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 18:04 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (6 responses)

Oh.. dead copyright holders either have successors in interest, or else they don't matter, is
what I suspect a lawyer would tell me.

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 18:31 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (5 responses)

Indeed, my understanding is that the copyright will generally end up with whoever holds the
estate. That doesn't make it easy to track them down.

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 19:18 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

I bet there are ways to solve this problem, such as publicising a proposed change and asking
for objections. Perhaps the law has already dealt with cases where some minority of copyright
holders in a collective work can't be found and/or don't take an interest...

It's not Suns' problem though..

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 19:33 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

I agree - it's unfortunate for Linux that Sun chose a license that the GPL is incompatible
with, but they were entirely within their rights to do so. My only objection is to the
repeatedly raised "Linux people hate dtrace for irrational reasons" type claims. Linux vendors
feel they can't ship dtrace for justifiable legal reasons, which means that there's little
incentive to work on the technical details. Whatever NIH tendencies the Linux community may
have, they're not the reason for ignoring dtrace.

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 21:32 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

No, it's not Sun's problem.  Unfortunately, it's not Linux's problem either -- the GPLv2 was
written 15 years before the CDDL.

It's a mutual problem.

The Linux team is unable to modify the Linux Kernel's license, and the DTrace team sounds
quite unwilling to amend/modify/dual license DTrace, so I guess we're at an impasse.  Can
anything be done?

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 21:51 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm sure we could find licences which predate the GPL which also would *not* have served
OpenSolaris. E.g. Solaris engineering has a fairly strong BSD background and you can bet that
licence was at least mentioned..

So, sorry, that's just a daft argument.

More DTrace envy

Posted Jul 3, 2008 22:55 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Hm, I don't understand.  What is a daft argument?  That it's a mutual problem?  That combining
CDDL and GPL code appears to be at an impasse?