SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 18:40 UTC (Mon) by danieldk (guest, #27876)
In reply to: SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM by robert_s
Parent article: SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

License-wise (IllumOS/Joyent/Nexenta) they are stuck in a hard place, thanks to Sun. CDDL provides none of the advantages of non-copyleft licenses (easy re-use in proprietary software), nor benefits that the GPL would give (code sharing with Linux).

Of course, this was exactly Sun's intention, and it goes to show that picking non-standard licenses is not really helping the wider community.

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SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 19:02 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (9 responses)

Completely wrong. CDDL, differently from GPL, does not have the virality problem, so there is no problem with reusing the code in proprietary software. At the same time, it has all the advantages of copyleft license (it's just a slightly tweaked Mozilla license). Yes, it is impossible to share code with Linux, but that can be said about any license that is not GPL or subset of GPL.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 19:28 UTC (Mon) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link] (4 responses)

Completely wrong.

You are stating this as if there is no difference between the CDDL and non-copyleft licenses, which is not true. Any proprietary software vendor would have to release the source code to any CDDL-licensed file, including proprietary modifications.

Yes, it is impossible to share code with Linux, but that can be said about any license that is not GPL or subset of GPL.

Well, some of the other major licenses are compatible with the GPL, such as the modified BSD License and the X11 (MIT) license. Of course, the viral nature will taint, say a BSD operating system.

Anyway, the GPL has been around for ages and CDDL is relatively new. Pretty much everyone agrees that Sun did not use the GPL or a compatible license for the fear of losing an advantage in some areas. That was their right, but their contribution to the FLOSS community should not be overstated. They licensed it in such a way that the code is not really useful outside the OpenSolaris community.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 19:48 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, proprietary software vendor has to release it's modifications to the CDDL code; that's the point of copyleft, after all. However, differently from GPL, at least in Stallman's interpretation, the vendor does not need to release _his_ code that is merely linked with CDDL-ed code.

As for the GPL compatibility - MIT and modified BSD are subset of GPL.

As for the usefulness: licensing OpenSolaris under GPL would make it useless to everyone except Linux community, and Linux developers probably wouldn't accept the code anyway due to NIH. By licensing it under CDDL they made the code available for pretty much everyone, including e.g. MacOS X, and even Linux: using CDDL-ed kernel module is not in any way more problematic than using closed source kernel module.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 19:58 UTC (Mon) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (2 responses)

As for the usefulness: licensing OpenSolaris under GPL would make it useless to everyone except Linux community, and Linux developers probably wouldn't accept the code anyway due to NIH. By licensing it under CDDL they made the code available for pretty much everyone, including e.g. MacOS X, and even Linux: using CDDL-ed kernel module is not in any way more problematic than using closed source kernel module.

You lost me here. The parent comment regarded the decision to conflict with the GPL, not about changing from CDDL to GPL. Your "NIH" comment is an unfortunate non-sequitur.

Binary modules are very problematic for Linux distributors and users. If the module is not binary but under a conflicting license the situation is slightly better, only in that you can see the code if you were so inclined to look. That still would not make maintenance, distribution, or a user's life any easier.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 20:13 UTC (Mon) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (1 responses)

Ah, I assumed you were talking about releasing the code under GPL, not about making CDDL GPL-compatible. But again - the only way to make CDDL GPL-compatible would be to make it a subset of GPL, it couldn't include the nice patent protection it has now, for example.

As for binary modules - yes, they are a problem, but it's just an annoyance. Releasing the code under GPL instead of CDDL would make it impossible to e.g. include DTrace in OSX - not "inconvenient", but just impossible, at least according to Stallman's interpretation of GPL.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 15, 2011 22:25 UTC (Mon) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

Surely the code could be dual-licensed under the GPL and the CDDL.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 16, 2011 9:04 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (3 responses)

(...) the virality problem (...)

Could you please refrain from using this word? You get viruses against your will and they try to destroy you, whereras you choose to derive from GPL code and I fail to see that destroy anybody.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 16, 2011 20:13 UTC (Tue) by jone (guest, #62596) [Link]

Actually, I think they misspelled virility .. while the code and ideas are quite high caliber, I've always felt that due to the CDDL [open]solaris have historically suffered from an impotence problem with a slight overcompensation by bragging about their 64 bit structures and large disk drives. :)

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 17, 2011 2:43 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

Just an unrelated aside. The implied evil of viruses is your own cultural predication. A properly evolved virus doesn't kill the host or really even harm them, in fact a virus that results in death is a virus that isn't very good at it's job. The human genome is littered with the DNA of Viruses from the past that got their DNA incorporated into our own permanently. If the virus kills the host they've eliminated a transmission vector and hurt their own survival prospect. A virus that's good at it's job succeeds in infecting every possible host without damage to the host, thus ensuring permanent survival of the DNA/RNA.

Viruses and disease are a natural evil in Human language but modern science has revealed the virus to be a very flexible organism. Some of those are beneficial and helpful. In the same vein a "viral" GPL isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on perspective.

SmartOS (based on IllumOS) released - with KVM

Posted Aug 17, 2011 21:35 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

It's bad in that it's inaccurate.

Viruses propogate without permission from their host. That's very much what the phrase is used to imply is going on.