[wellylug] Finally... OpenSolaris is on it's way

[Rob Giltrap]

Your right, it may do but if the GPL is a smaller component rather than 
the base of the aggregated software the argument leans much more towards 
the CDDL than the GPL. Neither the GPL nor the CDDL is a perfect 
license, in fact there is no perfect license, if there was then the OSI 
would not have needed to approve 56 different open source licenses.

The CDDL has not been tested in court (as far as I am aware) but has 
been tested by lawyers to minimise ambiguity. RMS himself has stated 
that the GPL has ambiguity which has been both helpful and a hinderence 
to the cause of Linux.

I am actually looking forward to some critical analysis of the CDDL 
(other than the OSI) because it won't be accepted by the masses until 
that has happened.

This is something we should be celebrating, a massive amount of valuable 
source code has been gifted to the community, this is even bigger than 
the creation of OpenOffice.org. Think of it in these terms. As all the 
Solaris systems get upgraded to Solaris 10 they will go from running a 
proprietary OS to an open source OS. Open source adoption will massively 
increase just through normal upgrade cycles. People will not need to 
"decide" to go to Linux in order to go Open Source. This is great news 
for the growth of open source, great new for Suns users and great news 
for Solaris developers.


Pete Black wrote:

> So, if a GPL'd Linux kernel 'poisons' the LGPL GNOME due to 
> aggregation, does shipping a GPLed app with an OpenSolaris kernel  
> 'poison'  the CDDL - and if not, why not?
>
> And exactly how is it 'legally unclear'? I don't understand how you 
> could claim that bundling a separate LGPL package with a GPL package 
> somehow forces the LGPL package to fall under the GPL.
>
> I mean, when a vendor like Redhat ships Suns Java with a GPLed linux 
> kernel, does Java now fall under the GPL?
>
> And has the CDDL been 'tested in court'?
>
> -Pete
>
>
> On 27/01/2005, at 12:01 AM, Rob Giltrap wrote:
>
>> Jamie Baddeley wrote:
>>
>>> That's great news Rob.
>>>
>>> In your opinion, what's the catch?
>>>
>>>
>>> jamie
>>>
>> First of all the disclaimer: I do a lot of work for Sun so am not 
>> entirely impartial ;-) However here's my independent take on it with 
>> a little inside knowledge.
>>
>> Basically the catch (and it isn't so much a catch) is that there is a 
>> different licensing model. The CDDL or "CuDDLe" as it is 
>> affectionately called is a little more corporate friendly in that it 
>> doesn't have what is sometimes called the GPL poisoning effect. This 
>> means that there is much better clarity around taking the core source 
>> and adding something. They have two definitions...
>>
>> 1) Covered Software - Which is the software specifically covered by 
>> the CDDL
>> 2) Larger Work - Which includes (in whole) the Covered Software plus 
>> any additonal software that may be under a different license 
>> (proprietary or other open source)
>>
>> So here is a comparision...
>>
>> Take Linux, it includes the Linux Kernel and a bunch system level 
>> things which are licensed under the GPL, On top of the Linux Kernel 
>> et al you have Gnome which is LGPL. It is legally unclear whether the 
>> relationship between the GPL software means that the Gnome LGPL 
>> software also becomes GPL. This is known to be ambiguous in the GPL 
>> and has not been tested in court (as no-one has had the incentive to 
>> do so as yet). This ambiguity is a risk and corporationsgenerally 
>> don't like risk.
>>
>> Next take Solaris, it includes OpenSolaris (which is the kernel and a 
>> bunch of other system level things these are released under the CDDL) 
>> and also includes Gnome which sits on top of OpenSolaris and is 
>> licensed under the LGPL. The CDDL is clear it stating that the CDDL 
>> does not override the LGPL licensing. It also allows clarity for the 
>> likes of IBM to offer DB2 on top of OpenSolaris under a proprietary 
>> license with absolute clarity with regards to the different licensing 
>> models sitting next to one another.
>>
>> There is a lot of VERY careful wording in the CDDL and essentially 
>> compares well with the MPL & LGPL open source licenses. It also 
>> carefully addresses the issues that caused forking of UNIX so that it 
>> is unlikely to reoccur (which is one of the strengths of Linux)
>>
>> So there is no catch, it is just a little different from being pure 
>> GPL. It is important to remember that Solaris & Linux today run 
>> X.org, Gnome & OpenOffice amongst many other open source components. 
>> This really just brings the Solaris kernel and other system level 
>> components fully into the realm of OpenSource in line with the Linux 
>> kernel components. So now you can say Linux, OpenSolaris & FreeBSD 
>> all in the same breath.
>>
>> Now for those who are skeptical and think Sun is a big hungry 
>> corporate wanting to make profits, you are absolutely right, and Sun 
>> intends to make shed loads by going back to it's roots and assembling 
>> innovative systems based on industry components. The difference now 
>> is that systems are not just hardware and an OS, systems are now 
>> hardware, OS, middle tier infrastructure, services and cost models. 
>> Sun has got some awesome tech up it's sleeve, over the next 12 months 
>> some heads are going to turn.
>>
>>
>> -- 
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