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

[Pete Black]

It's not that i'm not interested in OpenSolaris from a technical 
perspective - nor that I am somehow against an open source license for 
Solaris. I think its great that Sun is doing this, and I look forward to 
trying it in addition to the SPARC/Solaris systems I currently run.

What bothers me is the endless spouting of FUD from Sun about these 
ridiculous non-issues you raise as some justification for the CDDL's 
superiority.

As for this 'the smaller component's licensing loses out' - well, how 
does that stack up when the kernel is the small component, and say, KDE, 
GNU glibc, gcc and all the GPL-licensed GNU utilities are aggregated? 
Does the CDDL get overridden by the GPL in this case because it takes up 
less space in bytes? or fewer lines of source code?

I don't think so.

The GPL is very clear in it's wording, and on the one hand you make the 
claim that Sun's lawyers opinion is the basis for the strength of the 
CDDL, and then you state RMS (a non-lawyer)'s opinion as the basis for 
the weakness of the GPL.

Why not put Eben Moglen, or Dan Ravicher's (both FSF-associated lawyers) 
opinion re. the GPL up as examples of how the GPL is weak?

Many lawyers (including the above 2)  have stated that the GPL is 
practically unassailable as a binding legal license, which has been very 
successful in meeting the goals of the FSF to facilitate the spread of 
Free software, and enforced by the FSF's legal team on a regular basis.

Also, please don't confuse 'the cause of Linux' with RMS's Free Software 
Foundation's goals. The first doesn't even exist, and the second is 
something that has nothing to do with the Linux kernel.

I realise you are writing this with good intentions, but none of the 
arguments Sun puts forward  or the aspersions it tries to cast w/regard 
to the GPL hold the slightest bit of water as far as I am concerned.

By all means, tell us about how good OpenSolaris is and what it has to 
offer if it comes up in a Linux-related discussion on this list, but 
please don't regurgitate the frankly laughable Sun 'IP-scaremongering' 
party line, because I for one don't appreciate the insult to my 
intelligence.

Wheres the 'Wellington OpenSolaris User Group Mailing List'? - because I 
think any more discussion on the subject of CDDL vs GPL might better be 
done on that.

Apologies if this comes across a bit harsh, I don't mean to say you're 
flat-out wrong - in that the CDDL clearly does differ from the GPL, and 
I think it is a fine license that does indeed do a good job of 
addressing Sun's requirements to protect and cultivate it's 
contributions to the open source community.

However, this is not an excuse to attack the GPL - Copyright law itself 
includes ambiguous terms such as ' the work' - where 'the work' is never 
expiclitly defined and is thus ambiguous - It is simply wrong to state 
that the use of 'ambiguous' terms threaten the legality or ability to 
intepret licenses such as the CDDL and GPL which depend on copyright law 
to function.

-Pete



> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Wellington Linux Users Group Mailing List: 
>>> wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz
>>> To Leave:  http://lists.wellylug.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/wellylug
>>
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