Re: and calls kernel API's directly is a derivative work

Posted Feb 21, 2016 17:09 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
In reply to: Re: and calls kernel API's directly is a derivative work by paulj
Parent article: Kirkland: ZFS licensing and Linux

> just to be incompatible with the GPL. Not even Danese Cooper said that, her claim was that it was "partially because".
> [...]
> Anyway, what I know for sure is that, at worst, Linux compatibility was but 1 of a number of concerns that led to Sun choosing the CDDL

Wait, what is the purpose of all these words, you are conceeding that you agree that GPL incompatabily was a requirement in the crafting of the CDDL, but the point you want to add is that this wasn't literally the _only_ license criteria, a point that was not under serious criticism? It seems like the real difference in opinion is not in the facts but in how much you personally value them, the deliberate incompatabily is a bigger deal for some people than for you.

Re: and calls kernel API's directly is a derivative work

Posted Feb 21, 2016 20:07 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

I didn't concede that at all. I never heard of Linux incompatibility being a motivating factor, and I had a chat with a mentor of mine about this who was involved (as well as a brief chat with the director of Solaris engineering in a 1:1, when he visited our site).

Danese is the only person who has said that, and she said "partially".

All I wanted to do was point out that there were other reasons why Sun would not have chosen the GPLv2. E.g., one being that a lot of Solaris engineers (inc. the former engineers in management) were much more BSD-aligned and just anti-GPL - nothing to do with Linux, just reflecting a long-standing, often dogmatic, split in the free Unix world between BSD and FSF aligned camps; the other being that Sun legal wanted stronger patent lawsuit defences than the GPLv2 provides. All I'm saying is that Simon Phipps' account rings much more true to me.

AFAIK, regardless of the truth behind Danese's comment, the outcome was just not to be one where Solaris would have been GPLv2 (or compatible licensed) - independently of the Linux question.

Basically, the conspiracy theories on this are way overblown.

If it was said it was cause there was a visceral dislike for the GPL amongst many inside Solaris eng and Sun legal and management were never going to agree to a BSD licence, then - that'd ring a lot more true.

Re: and calls kernel API's directly is a derivative work

Posted Feb 21, 2016 21:28 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and I've gone and listened to that Debian workshop video on licenses to hear Daneses exact words, and she did *not* mention Linux, she said the "Mozilla [licence] was selected partially because it is GPL incompatible".

So the comments here saying it was because of /Linux/ incompatibility are twisting Danese's words somewhat.

Where she said that there were people from engineering in the discussion pushing very hard for the BSD licence, and some for the GPL - that's exactly what I heard from my mentor (I suspect my mentor would have been one of the ones who had pushed for GPL). And Simon Phipps at ~36 minutes says the same thing - that the Solaris engineering community wanted the BSD licence. Phipps goes on to say the "we" (I guess himself, Danese, ??) didn't want that, because they wanted a copyleft licence.

Next, you have to know Sun was already using a Mozilla based licence; that Sun (e.g. Phipps) didn't want to use a strong copyleft licence (didn't want to force ISVs to have to copyleft); that Sun wanted strong patent protections for itself and other community members. Phipps also states (38m) that engineering would have "quit" if they'd picked GPLv2.

That last bit is consistent with my limited experiences. And it had nothing to do with Linux. It had to do with very strong BSD v GPL licensing views within Solaris engineering, and Solaris engineering having very strong Unix/BSD roots.

Remember, the engineers - the ones who largely ruled out the GPLv2 as a valid choice - would have chosen BSD otherwise! So it just could _not_ have been about screwing Linux, cause if they'd got their way, the code would have been under a licence that was perfectly compatible (one way) with going into Linux!

As per previous, I think the GPL was ruled out for Solaris more because of bias around the licence, and ancient BSD/FSF divides, than anything to do with Linux directly.