Submitted by On Wednesday February 8th, the OpenSolaris Community Advisory Board voted to approve The OpenSolaris Charter. Sun Microsystems also approved the Charter, and the document was signed by Glenn Weinberg, vice president of Sun’s Operating Platforms Group.
The OpenSolaris Charter
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This sounds nice, but the OpenSolaris is going to need some more help for this project really go somewhere. There was an article posted on this site some time ago where Sun sounded interested in dual licensing OpenSolaris under the GLPv3 and the CDDL. If this were to be the case, I wonder if Debian would start to develop for this platform?
Why is the licence even an issue? What OpenSolaris needs is more evangelisation, a greater push into universities, and more software so that students in engineering and programming can not only do their study on it, but also study the internals of the Solaris operating system as well.
If there is one thing SUN is crappy at, and thats properly evangelising their products.
Maybe under the GPl 3 if Sun goes with it, but I don’t see it happening then again I never thought Macintel would become a word either. The CDDL is to restrictive. What’s worse is that it is legally dangerous. Sun has patent protected IP there. if you ever build anything like that and you fail to license it under Sun CDDL your opening your self to litigation by Sun.
So until either Sun opens it’s patents(doesn’t have to be all just the ones in Solaris) to all OSI approved licenses like every other Open Source company does, no one should look at that code. use is fine, but you as an individual can’t ever duplicate core pieces of Solaris. The License and the patents forbid it together.
If Sun switches Solaris to another license then their patent grant will also have to be switched. or they may forget it about it, and sue the pants off of the Open Solaris community for violating the patents.
The CDDL is to restrictive. What’s worse is that it is legally dangerous. Sun has patent protected IP there. if you ever build anything like that and you fail to license it under Sun CDDL your opening your self to litigation by Sun.
Too restrictive? Excuse me? Are you aware that the GPLv3 will likely be *more* restrictive than the CDDL (based on my reading of the draft)? Are you also aware that if anything the CDDL is *less* restrictive than the GPL if you leave out the parts about patents?
So until either Sun opens it’s patents(doesn’t have to be all just the ones in Solaris) to all OSI approved licenses like every other Open Source company does, no one should look at that code. use is fine, but you as an individual can’t ever duplicate core pieces of Solaris. The License and the patents forbid it together.
Not *every* other open source company opens their patents to all OSI approved licenses. Besides, SUN is not an open source company. They just happen to *support* open source. In fact, there are very few companies I would consider “open source” companies. RedHat is the closest to what I consider one, and they’re not perfect either. I suppose it all depends on what your definition of “open source company” is.
You can’t say IBM either, because IBM hasn’t made *all* patents that might apply to Linux freely available to all OSI licenses. Only about 500 at last check…
If Sun switches Solaris to another license then their patent grant will also have to be switched. or they may forget it about it, and sue the pants off of the Open Solaris community for violating the patents.
That’s wild conjecture at best. Your understanding does not match mine.
Edited 2006-02-12 01:31
Too restrictive? Excuse me? Are you aware that the GPLv3 will likely be *more* restrictive than the CDDL (based on my reading of the draft)?
This is something Sun, their supporters and many open source people in general just don’t get. If you are going to create a project and a community like OpenSolaris then you need a main, core license that will make sure that everyone is fair, and that code that people contribute is shared to everyone else – including that produced by Sun. In this manner, the GPL has worked spectacularly well for the Linux kernel and other projects, but many people just cannot comprehend just how important it is.
Under the CDDL, Sun can lift contributions from the OpenSolaris community, make amendments that are closed to everyone else, integrate them into their own products and say “Thank you very much”. How do you think the contributors are going to feel, and do you think they’re going to feel good about continuing to work within OpenSolaris? Red Hat just about got away with this with Fedora because what’s in Fedora can be used freely elsewhere and in other projects – not so with the CDDL and OpenSolaris.
Besides, SUN is not an open source company. They just happen to *support* open source.
Then they shouldn’t bother with an ‘open source‘ project then.
Under the CDDL, Sun can lift contributions from the OpenSolaris community, make amendments that are closed to everyone else, integrate them into their own products and say “Thank you very much”. How do you think the contributors are going to feel, and do you think they’re going to feel good about continuing to work within OpenSolaris?
You don’t understand OpenSolaris at all. Solaris after 10 is going to be opensolaris. So whatever amendments Sun makes ends up in the OpenSlaris source base for everyone to use. The scenario you envisage won’t happen.
You don’t understand OpenSolaris at all. Solaris after 10 is going to be opensolaris. So whatever amendments Sun makes ends up in the OpenSlaris source base for everyone to use.
I’m afraid that sleight of hand simply doesn’t hold water. There is nothing in the license that says that Sun has to contribute code back. There is a responsibility on the contributor, however. The CDDL was designed for one purpose – to have something written down which says “This code belongs to Sun because we don’t want a fork”.
The situation of Sun and outside contributors is not equal.
The scenario you envisage won’t happen.
There’s nothing preventing it.
I’m afraid that sleight of hand simply doesn’t hold water. There is nothing in the license that says that Sun has to contribute code back. There is a responsibility on the contributor, however. The CDDL was designed for one purpose – to have something written down which says “This code belongs to Sun because we don’t want a fork”.
Your misinformed opinions are really what don’t hold water. The CDDL empowers every one to do the same. Anyone can take the body of work which is OpenSolaris and incorporate it in thier work and not release thier work back to the community, only the original work needs to be in CDDL.
The CDDL is perfectly fair in that regard and not biased towards Sun as you would want everyone to believe.
Your misinformed opinions are really what don’t hold water. The CDDL empowers every one to do the same. Anyone can take the body of work which is OpenSolaris and incorporate it in thier work and not release thier work back to the community, only the original work needs to be in CDDL.
The CDDL is perfectly fair in that regard and not biased towards Sun as you would want everyone to believe.
You’re missing one detail however.
While everything you’ve said is true, the problem that is being debated actually has nothing to do with CDDL at all.
Rather it has to do with the OpenSolaris community and the fact that in order to participate in this community, i.e. contribute code, you must sign a form giving Sun shared copyright on your contributions.
Once Sun has copyright (albeit shared with the original contributor, but copyright nonetheless), Sun has the ability to RELICENSE the code however they see fit, just as the original contributor does.
So, in fact, CDDL is a red herring in this case, and this shared copyright aspect has nothing to do at all with the CDDL. But it is an aspect of contributing to the OpenSolaris (and Glassfish as well) community.
Your misinformed opinions are really what don’t hold water. The CDDL empowers every one to do the same.
Nice bit of marketing speak.
Anyone can take the body of work which is OpenSolaris and incorporate it in thier work and not release thier work back to the community, only the original work needs to be in CDDL.
The original work must be licensed under the CDDL. And what does the CDDL say (as with all licenses)? Copyright overrides the license. The copyright allows Sun to change the license, or to relicense the works along with any submissions under a different license, as part of a proprietary product – without releasing anything. They are not obligated to keep the CDDL license on the code they have. A community member would, of course, have to release any changes under the terms of the CDDL.
That’s the part that’s somewhat unfair and unequal. If you contribute code to a Sun, CDDLed project then your contributions are not protected from this since copyright is given up. From an IP perspective this isn’t too bad, but from a community contribution perspective it’s a killer.
The CDDL is not a terribly bad license. It’s a bit like the LGPL in some ways which ensures contributions are licensed under the CDDL but you can link to code of differing licenses – essential for Sun. We’ll leave the part of that scenario for now which makes the GPL a real community project success – namely, ensuring that code goes continually into the project, giving it a real critical mass, rather than proprietary extensions being bunged around the outside.
However, all the same, the copyright requires Sun’s goodwill and very much places the ball in their court regarding that. That’s why the CDDL was created, not because there wasn’t any suitable licenses already available.
The CDDL is perfectly fair in that regard and not biased towards Sun as you would want everyone to believe.
Well….. The CDDL might appear to be fair in many ways, but Sun as the sole copyright holder to ALL the source code probably will not be for many contributors.
Edited 2006-02-12 20:02
Can’t Mozilla do the same thing considering it’s practically the same license? If so, why isn’t there a similar up-roar about Firefox?
Too restrictive? Excuse me? Are you aware that the GPLv3 will likely be *more* restrictive than the CDDL (based on my reading of the draft)? Are you also aware that if anything the CDDL is *less* restrictive than the GPL if you leave out the parts about patents?
Like first, no trolling here.
What he ment is. Sun can use GPL with CDDL. While one using GPL can’t benefit from CDDL. CDDL is less restricted than GPL, off course you are right here. The only problem is that this license is more open to MS and other companies than to GPL coders. It is considered as using free world to benefit proprietary, while in the same time screwing free coders (with this I’m considering GPL coders only, not BSD, MIT…).
Personaly, I’m only happy that project when making Ubuntu-like Nexenta steped on a license mine which makes it almost impossible to get out without legal problems. Not that I wouldn’t like for Nexenta to succed, I would. It is just the fact that Sun can put CDDL version of Solaris out 1000 times and I won’t use it (I will still rather use commercial version when customer or job demands it, than free under the license I don’t approve). On the other hand if they put out GPL, that makes another story.
Only about 500 at last check..
That was first batch of patents. You should check second one too, where IBM and some others put out additional patents.
> Sun can use GPL with CDDL. While one using GPL can’t benefit from CDDL.
Say what? The two licenses are mutually exclusive. GPL and CDDL licensed code cannot be mixed and distributed under either license.
Excuse me, where is there a history of SUN suing people over patent infringements?
Lets stop the baseless SUN bashing and actually get to this place called reality – so you have a religious hatred of SUN, good for you, but remember at the same time, they aren’t the devil, they aren’t going to jump through your window and rape you at night.
As for IBM – what about all those OTHER licences and patents they hold onto?! why not open up their WHOLE patent portfolio if they’re so gung-ho about free love and free software?
IBM and SUN are alike, they’ll throw the OSS community a few things to keep them quiet, and quite frankly, SUN comes out as the good guy each and everytime.
StarOffice, bought and opensourced for the community; GNOME HIG and testing labs, again, SUN. The list goes on and on – and what has IBM given? a cruddy posix library that went no where, a file system that is a bitch in performance, and tweaks to get their stuff working on their proprietary hardware vs. SUN opening up their crown jewels to the public in the form of OpenSolaris, more than I can say for the lack of ‘opensourcing’ IBM is doing right now with their middleware.
Excuse me, where is there a history of SUN suing people over patent infringements?
That doesn’t answer anything. Sun created the CDDL, they supposedly have an OpenSolaris community, and as part of running a community project these are questions that need to get answered.
you have a religious hatred of SUN, good for you, but remember at the same time, they aren’t the devil, they aren’t going to jump through your window and rape you at night.
OK. We all know you think the sun shines out of…..Sun’s backside! Point taken.
As for IBM – what about all those OTHER licences and patents they hold onto?! why not open up their WHOLE patent portfolio if they’re so gung-ho about free love and free software?
Because their whole portfolio probably doesn’t cover much open source software. IBM does much more than software development.
SUN opening up their crown jewels to the public in the form of OpenSolaris
Have they? Remember that OpenSolaris is not a distribution – it’s a code dump.
The list goes on and on – and what has IBM given?
The list doesn’t go on – that’s it. IBM did start Eclipse, which now everyone sees as the standard Java IDE and framework, which Sun tried to deride and then created Netbeans. IBM’s also done some pretty good work around Java and Apache, as has Sun.
more than I can say for the lack of ‘opensourcing’ IBM is doing right now with their middleware.
Sun isn’t open sourcing their middleware either. Yes, Sun have done some pretty good work, mainly with Open Office, but they’re a company that takes pretty wild stabs in the dark until they find something rather than having some sort of idea from day one.
Edited 2006-02-12 14:07
>>Have they? Remember that OpenSolaris is not a distribution – it’s a code dump.
And your point is? Last time i read a Kernel release from Linus on LWN it look pretty much like a code dump to me. (Tarball)
Currently there are at least three third party distro’s based on Opensolaris out there (i’m installing Nextenta in Vmware server as we speak). As for SUN, well i would call Solaris Express nearly equivalent to a distro, though they currently stuck on Build30 (source was release for Build33 last week). Though of course Solaris Express isn’t a “pure” opensource distro as it contains all elements in Solaris OE that havn’t been opensourced let, but hey it’s a start.
And your point is? Last time i read a Kernel release from Linus on LWN it look pretty much like a code dump to me. (Tarball)
The Linux kernel is not a whole OS like Solaris is ;-). What you have to compare it to is something like Fedora or openSUSE.
Currently there are at least three third party distro’s based on Opensolaris out there
Which is what my point was – it’s not a distribution.
As for SUN, well i would call Solaris Express nearly equivalent to a distro
It’s not an open source project.
Which is what my point was – it’s not a distribution.
As for SUN, well i would call Solaris Express nearly equivalent to a distro
It’s not an open source project.
You would do better if you researched topics about which your are dicsussing. Solaris express is the distribution based on OpenSolaris. The code base and the distribution track perfectly. There are some parts of Solaris that Sun can’t yet release because of thirdparty copyrighted code. Pretty much everything Sun can opensource has been.
ZFS, Dtrace, zones So on are all Sun IP and are opensourced. Taking about X windows and graphics drivers doesn’t make sense because the x86 versions of Solaris use X.org. So the descrepnecy is only on the SPARC side.
Please sell your koolaid elsewhere.
You would do better if you researched topics about which your are dicsussing. Solaris express is the distribution based on OpenSolaris.
You would do well to research what an open source project actually is, and how comparable projects out there work.
Solaris Express is still not Open Solaris. You can’t compile the code of Open Solaris and get Solaris Express. That’s the point that you just can’t seem to wrap your head around. I can do that with comparable projects like Fedora or openSUSE.
The code base and the distribution track perfectly.
Do they really?
Please sell your koolaid elsewhere.
I don’t need to. You’re drinking it straight off the stall.
Solaris Express is still not Open Solaris. You can’t compile the code of Open Solaris and get Solaris Express. That’s the point that you just can’t seem to wrap your head around. I can do that with comparable projects like Fedora or openSUSE.
The problem with you is you don’t understand the Solaris development model. I am not going to waste my energy explaining it. Once you do understand what constitutes Solaris you will realize how mistaken you are and how absurd your arguments sounds.
Fedora can be recompiled from source. Because fedora is, Linux + GNU + GNOME+ ….. etc. CDE and Gnome are not part of Solaris they are part of the Solaris Operating Environment ( aka distribution). Solaris is the SunOS Kernel ( incuding drivers) + userland and that’s what you get with opensolaris. GNU/Linux is akin to OpenSolaris. Nexenta is synoymous with Fedora. You can compile nexenta from sources. Linux is not Fedora or Opensolaris like wise OpenSolaris is not the Solaris OE.
Like I said please research, then understand before you post.
The problem with you is you don’t understand the Solaris development model. I am not going to waste my energy explaining it. Once you do understand what constitutes Solaris you will realize how mistaken you are and how absurd your arguments sounds.
The Solaris development model and the distinction you are describing is utterly pointless. What it amounts to is what I’ve actually described – OpenSolaris is nothing more than a code dump because Sun doesn’t want to give a working, compilable, open source OS away for free. Sun’s marketing literature about proprietary operating systems from IBM and HP makes me laugh.
You’re also missing the point that Sun continually tries to make, which is that Solaris is open source. It isn’t, and OpenSolaris and Solaris Express are the proof.
Fedora can be recompiled from source. Because fedora is, Linux + GNU + GNOME+ ….. etc. CDE and Gnome are not part of Solaris they are part of the Solaris Operating Environment ( aka distribution).
No, you’re missing the point. Fedora can be compiled from source because all the relevant parts of it are open and the source code is there. Not so with Solaris as a whole. We’ll see whether Sun get around to replacing those parts with open source code under a unified license and making Solaris a full, proper open source OS as they have promised.
Solaris is the SunOS Kernel ( incuding drivers) + userland and that’s what you get with opensolaris. GNU/Linux is akin to OpenSolaris.
Linux provides nothing in userland and is not comparable with OpenSolaris at all.
Additionally, how would you define the userland? I would define it as the rest of the OS on top of the kernel, which is why I said the distinction that you are describing is just plain daft. Without a whole top-to-bottom OS (Solaris = OpenSolaris = OS) OpenSolaris is going to have very, very, very few contributors. When was the last time you heard anyone describe Solaris as the SunOS kernel plus userland tools plus the Solaris Operating Environment? Never.
Might I suggest Sun changes the name of their open source project to reflect this silly situation rather than trying to pretend it is something that it isn’t so they can score extremely cheap marketing points?
Like I said please research, then understand before you post.
Since you don’t understand what I’m driving at at all, or you do and don’t want to discuss it, then I might suggest some thinking andresearch before you post – the CDDL and Sun’s control of it being a case in point.
Edited 2006-02-13 15:29
Linux provides nothing in userland and is not comparable with OpenSolaris at all.
Did I say Linux or GNU/Linux? If you don’t understand the subtle distinction you shouldn’t be trolling in favor of linux and being anti-Sun. Especially in a Solaris article.
Additionally, how would you define the userland? I would define it as the rest of the OS on top of the kernel, which is why I said the distinction that you are describing is just plain daft. Without a whole top-to-bottom OS (Solaris = OpenSolaris = OS) OpenSolaris is going to have very, very, very few contributors. When was the last time you heard anyone describe Solaris as the SunOS kernel plus userland tools plus the Solaris Operating Environment? Never.
Hmm…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Operating_Environment
“This was marked by changing the marketing name of the operating system to Solaris 2; however, the term “SunOS” was still used to refer to the underlying operating system itself, and Solaris is considered to be the SunOS 5 operating system plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking and other components.“
Let’s see who is being daft here.
Edited 2006-02-13 16:12
Did I say Linux or GNU/Linux?
Where can I download and run this GNU/Linux as a recognisable project entity and OS? Nowhere, that’s where. GNU/Linux is not comparable to OpenSolaris because it itself doesn’t exist – it’s a general term. You could include Gnome as a piece of GNU software, and the FSF does say ‘complete operating system’ when describing GNU/Linux, which means your usage of it is wrong. You do understand that, right?
If you’d said “a distribution that only includes Linux and the bare userland and command line essentials (most of them GNU software)” then that would have been a more accurate description. As it is, you described using nothing other than Linux using that term.
Again, you’re frantically avoiding the meaty parts you don’t like by trying to score very small points.
…you shouldn’t be trolling in favor of linux and being anti-Sun.
And when did I say I was trolling for Linux and being anti-Sun when I legitimately described how Sun controls the CDDL and all code produced under it? I notice you skipped over that one.
“This was marked by changing the marketing name of the operating system to Solaris 2; however, the term “SunOS” was still used to refer to the underlying operating system itself, and Solaris is considered to be the SunOS 5 operating system plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking and other components.”
Thanks for that rarely used description of what Solaris is. That helps a lot. Oh, and thanks for reading the bottom sentence for very small points scoring and totally glossing over the whole of my paragraph and the point :-).
Let’s see who is being daft here.
Hmmm. Maybe you should read what you’ve quoted and put it into context?
“Solaris is considered to be the SunOS 5 operating system plus a graphical user environment, ONC+, and networking and other components.”
So, if someone mentions the name OpenSolaris to you what do you think it would mean from the above description? What does OpenSolaris consist of then?
Let’s just admit what OpenSolaris isn’t, which is Solaris, and what Solaris isn’t, which is open source shall we? That, afterall, was the actual point.
Hence:
“The Solaris development model and the distinction you are describing is utterly pointless. What it amounts to is what I’ve actually described – OpenSolaris is nothing more than a code dump because Sun doesn’t want to give a working, compilable, open source OS away for free. Sun’s marketing literature about proprietary operating systems from IBM and HP makes me laugh.
You’re also missing the point that Sun continually tries to make, which is that Solaris is open source. It isn’t, and OpenSolaris and Solaris Express are the proof.”
OpenSolaris isn’t Solaris (but Sun would like everyone to think that from the name so they can say Solaris is open sourced and not proprietary), Solaris isn’t open sourced, and the CDDL, and all code produced under it, is something that Sun controls.
Points well and truly made. Thanks for you help.
Where can I download and run this GNU/Linux as a recognisable project entity and OS? Nowhere, that’s where.
Let’s see…. http://www.debian.org.
let’s see what the first couple of paragraphs say:
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 15490 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
So It is clear that the GNU userland and linux form GNU/Linux and by debian’s marketing speak it is clear that debian strives to provide more. But the base system sans the extra stuff is GNU/Linux.
So, if someone mentions the name OpenSolaris to you what do you think it would mean from the above description? What does OpenSolaris consist of then?
The kernel and userland OS. The desktop enviroment and X windows doesnot make Solaris, Solaris. OpenSunOS would not have a nice ring since Solaris has more brand awareness.
So when you pick the bare minimum packages from the Solaris Install CD you don’t get all the features(Xsun, Gnome, CDE ….) but you still get Solaris!!!!
Let’s just admit what OpenSolaris isn’t, which is Solaris, and what Solaris isn’t, which is open source shall we? That, afterall, was the actual point.
Your admitting something doesn’t make it reality. What about OpenSolaris is not Solaris?
Edited 2006-02-13 20:38
The list doesn’t go on – that’s it. IBM did start Eclipse, which now everyone sees as the standard Java IDE and framework, which Sun tried to deride and then created Netbeans. IBM’s also done some pretty good work around Java and Apache, as has Sun.
You have your history all confused. Sun open sourced Netbeans in 2000. IBM formed the intitial consortium in 2001. IBM started eclipse to deride netbeans, hence the name eclipse ( Get it, Sun, eclipse).
You have your history all confused. Sun open sourced Netbeans in 2000. IBM formed the intitial consortium in 2001.
Not the point I was trying to make. Netbeans never became what it is today without Eclipse. In fact, Sun never even got developing with Netbeans until they realised that Eclipse was going to take people away from them.
IBM started eclipse to deride netbeans, hence the name eclipse ( Get it, Sun, eclipse).
It was done because the Java IDEs around at the time were expensive and crap – including Netbeans.
Not the point I was trying to make. Netbeans never became what it is today without Eclipse. In fact, Sun never even got developing with Netbeans until they realised that Eclipse was going to take people away from them.
Really. What point were you trying to make? You were responding to this:
The list goes on and on – and what has IBM given?
This was your response:
The list doesn’t go on – that’s it. IBM did start Eclipse, which now everyone sees as the standard Java IDE and framework, which Sun tried to deride and then created Netbeans. IBM’s also done some pretty good work around Java and Apache, as has Sun.
What you meant was perfectly clear and was based on false information. Stop backpedaling.
Really. What point were you trying to make? You were responding to this:
The list goes on and on – and what has IBM given?
This was your response:
Is Netbeans part of a completely open consortium and community? No. Is Eclipse? Yes. Has IBM contributed to projects like GCC? Yes. Does Sun ultimately control Open Office? Yes. Does Sun control OpenSolaris? A very big yes.
There’s this perception by Sun fans that they’re willing to cultivate that IBM doesn’t contribute anything and Sun does. That’s clearly not true, nor does Sun have an equal community of contributors in any of the projects they’ve started.
Point made.
What you meant was perfectly clear and was based on false information. Stop backpedaling.
This is OSNews, not a paper I’m releasing in a respected journal. By “created Netbeans” I mean actually making it into something people could use. Use that as a means to deflect attention all you like, but the essential point was this:
The only reason why Netbeans got the attention it deserved by Sun was because Eclipse was going to be a large thorn in Sun’s side, not because Sun did it off their own bat for the good of everyone. They thought they were going to open source Netbeans and that would be that.
Whether Sun created Netbeans before or after Eclipse is a pretty mute point in that context. No doubt it will become your main focus regardless.
Excuse me, where is there a history of SUN suing people over patent infringements?
Sun-MS over Java?
Lets stop the baseless SUN bashing and actually get to this place called reality – so you have a religious hatred of SUN, good for you, but remember at the same time, they aren’t the devil, they aren’t going to jump through your window and rape you at night.
This part of comment I actualy like:) Sun should be considered this way, yes. But Sun as company.
Problem maybe lies in public representatives Schwartz and McNeally who can’t decide between killing or praising linux. Viewpoint in their eyes changes from day to day, and greatest horror of all is that they speak this randomization in public.
Many of us dislike Sun mostly because we can’t know what (take solaris and java out of picture here) they will bash and praise tommorow. Ok, what we know. In both cases target is linux on a daily base.
Their opensource deeds are to be respected, not less.
IBM and SUN are alike, they’ll throw the OSS community a few things to keep them quiet, and quite frankly, SUN comes out as the good guy each and everytime.
Hammer on a nail here. I’m still waiting for Notes client or a 64-bit version of Domino. Or Google tools for linux. In my view the only company that put out more than Sun is Novell.
But at least be so fair when bashing IBM and name all the projects they helped financialy, IBM put a lot of money fo help various projects.
Sun-MS over Java?
That was a licencing issue – Microsoft was shipping a version of Java which did not meet the requirements of specifications of which they licenced.
No, Microsoft replaced standard Java components with proprietary extensions making them version in compatible with the specification, there by breaking the licencing agreement – NOTHING at all to do with patents and everything to do with Microsoft continuing to use the trademark 100% Java when it well and truely was not Java – it was a bastardised, incompatible version – hence the reason Simcity.com had a Java version of their SimCity classic provided in two versions, one for Windows, and one for everyone else else.
Problem maybe lies in public representatives Schwartz and McNeally who can’t decide between killing or praising linux. Viewpoint in their eyes changes from day to day, and greatest horror of all is that they speak this randomization in public.
Many of us dislike Sun mostly because we can’t know what (take solaris and java out of picture here) they will bash and praise tommorow. Ok, what we know. In both cases target is linux on a daily base.
I see nothing inconsistant, all I see is them bashing Novell and RedHat (mainly RedHat) just as RedHat bashes SUN – jut good old fashioned competition.
Stand back and read EVERYONE of the press releases, its all about the linux DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES NOT Linux, because it isn’t who SUN is competiting against, SUN is competing against the RedHats (along with Microsoft) of the world.
Hammer on a nail here. I’m still waiting for Notes client or a 64-bit version of Domino. Or Google tools for linux. In my view the only company that put out more than Sun is Novell.
How about opening sourcing their whole product line? I see them jump around like teenagers on energy drinks and yet, when are we going to see DB2 opensourced? how about Domino? Notes client and server?
SUN already has a road map for the release of their Solaris Enterprise System (formerly JES) source to the world, when are we going to see IBM do the same? I thought (not directing this at you) that IBM was all about free love, free code and freedom? what it seems to be more of is a bad case of ‘me too’ syndrome.
Oh, and what do they announce, “$200million for AIX” – but the unquoted part, it isn’t $200million in NEW funding.
But at least be so fair when bashing IBM and name all the projects they helped financialy, IBM put a lot of money fo help various projects.
Eclipse I’ll give you that, enhancements to GCC is another one, but there never seems to be the same level of love that one sees between SUN and embracing the use of opensource components are part of their products – when are we going to see IBM start shipping AIX with a tweaked version of GNOME? How about make AIX available on low cost PowerPC hardware being sold by their partners?
Like I said, IBM is all very good at making fancy movies, tricky side steps, but once you take the layer of bullshit off, skim the layer of optimism the more marketspeak, you get back to the reality of what IBM Is all about – selling expensive proprietary hardware, preaching promises that ensure that you MUST use their middleware and services, then extract as much cash out of the victim/customer as you humanly possibly can.
There was an article posted on this site some time ago where Sun sounded interested in dual licensing OpenSolaris under the GLPv3 and the CDDL. If this were to be the case, I wonder if Debian would start to develop for this platform?
I doubt it. The Debian project has problems with some of the GNU licenses as it is, and I sincerely doubt they will accept the GPLv3 since they seem to be big about not putting restrictions on software
They’re just a little too strict for my tastes.
Actually, doesn’t Debian already run on the Open Solaris kernel? Anyway, Debian sure isn’t a stranger to alternative kernels. From what I understand, Debian also runs on the Hurd, Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD kernels.
Yeah I believe Nexenta is Debian ontop of OpenSolaris “GNU/Debian OpenSolaris” I may be wrong mind havent looked into that project much.
Well, you should. There have been extensive debates over the issue since they started building their OS without clarifying all licence issues, and when people complained – just read the numerous mailing lists – they repeatedly dismissed the issues, sometimes even stating that it is Debian who should change and adapt to them since they are so gracious to have chosen Debian to take software from. I like Debian, I like OpenSolaris, these guys have not shown anything that I’d like.
Nexenta uses Debian ontop of OpenSolaris, but they did this without permission. The Debian community threw a fit, but the commotion seems to have died down without any legal action against Nexenta. I have read reviews of the Nexenta livecd, and they all have been very good. However, Nexenta is a company, and I don’t think they will have longterm viability. I see them to be like CentOS; that is, they don’t contribute much, but they repackage a quality product for others to use free of charge. Given the community nature of Debian, they will be around for a long time, and have a large number of volunteers. While no expert, I think that the Debian tools give the great popularity to Debian and Debian based distros. Because of this, official Debian support will go a long way with OpenSolaris.
I think the only way that Sun would consider the GPLv3 is if the Linux kernel stays with v2. OpenSolaris has a big advantage when it comes to server performance, and Sun would like to protect this advantage from Linux, their biggest rival. If the Linux kernel stays v2, they could not adopt D-Trace and Zones from OpenSolaris (there are other advantages from OpenSolaris as well). However, I think Sun will wait for Linus and the rest of te kernel team to formally make their decision before deciding the fate of OpenSolaris.
The person who said that Sun really needs to get this OS out to universities, students, etc. is absolutely correct. The problem is that, outside of Nexenta, I can’t think of anybody else who has a cd that you can run of OpenSolaris. I see the OpenSolaris project akin to the Fedora Core project. The more people who use it, the more refined the commercial product becomes. The Fedora project benefits the users who want to run a free, quality OS, and financially benefits a corporation who sells enterprise class servers and desktops. For Sun to reap the same benefits, they need a loyal community of OpenSolaris users, hence the need for promotion.
For another OpenSolaris distro there is SchiliX but last time i looked at that project (just after OpenSolaris appeared) it didnt come with any Desktop Environment
Ahhhh…That’s right, I remember seeing stuff about them on Distrowatch. Thanks for the correction.
> Nexenta uses Debian ontop of OpenSolaris, but they did this without permission. The Debian community threw a fit, but the commotion seems to have died down without any legal action against Nexenta.
I don’t understand the problem. Do the Debian guys think that third parties need their permission to put another kernel on top of Debian?
I should think that the OpenSolaris kernel would be covered by the GPL’s “system software” clause.
Hopefully OpenSolaris will slowly (or quickly!) become a viable alternative to Linux and the BSD triplets.
The more open platforms there are, the more available solutions there are for those who are looking to avoid closed platforms!
Browser: Links (0.99; OS/2 1 i386; 80×33)
Agreed. Openness means user choice, which is a good thing since you might not always agree with policies of the maintainer of kernel. It also makes collaboration possible. Xen would not be that significant if it only ran Linux, but because the Xen group could create custom versions of Linux, xBSD, and other open operating systems, Xen is a big deal even on non-Pacifica/Vanderpool chips. I’d be surprised if Xen someone isn’t busy porting Xen to OpenSolaris as we speak.
…I thought I’d add this at the end to show that Links 0.99 (in <shudder> text mode) actually DOES work with the GUI site. With cookies, voting, and everything, and all of this in spite of what the OSNews staff seems to (demonstrably) understand about browser capabilities.
You can see from my first response above that the “default” text OSNews site adds a stupid little second-class citizen indicator to postings made with a certain subset of browsers, but OSNews’ browser detection code is amusingly dependent on the User Agent being part of a known list.
Why this sort of thing isn’t simply an option in the User’s account settings is a mystery to me.
Go ahead — vote this one down. I’m getting close to the point of not caring about this site, anyway…
I don’t understand this comment. There was this:
Browser: Links (0.99; OS/2 1 i386; 80×33)
Is that what you mean by, “a stupid little second-class citizen indicator”? It looks like that is part of your post. Are you saying that you did not add it, but OSNews did?
That would seem to be a very odd and inexplicable quirk. But I still think OSNews is about my favorite website, probably because it hits the sweet spot of my interests.
I’m afraid that sleight of hand simply doesn’t hold water. There is nothing in the license that says that Sun has to contribute code back. There is a responsibility on the contributor, however. The CDDL was designed for one purpose – to have something written down which says “This code belongs to Sun because we don’t want a fork”.
This is a silly scenario based on GNU zealotry. Sun open sourced Solaris and let the forks happen. Sun may borrow good ideas from the forks but you have to remember that the aceptance criteria for the official Solaris release are much, much higher than what you find in a standard Linux distro. It is highly unlikely that Sun will ‘steal’ code from a fork because it must meet the rigorous requirements. But even if they did I don’t see the problem. Sun shares a huge body of open source Solaris, why can’t it work the other way once in a while??
Just catching up on this thread… In my view, there’s lots of lucid, logical conversation, but I think people can save themselves *a lot* of time by skipping “segedunum’s” apparently uninformed (inflammatory? and and worse, totally anonymous) comments, and read Steven Vaughan-Nichols early (but IMO ill-advised) painting of the CDDL as a Sun-controlled, anti-Linux thing, which was openly (non-anonymously) and soundly rebutted by Andy Tucker, who is now a VMware engineer, formerly a Solaris kernel engineer.
Here’s Steven’s article:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1784415,00.asp
Here’s Andy’s rebuttal:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tucker?anchor=open_source_licenses…
Steven apparently never read Andy’s post — either that, or he read it and chose not to acknowledge it — at least AFAICT.
Eric Boutilier
OpenSolaris
Here are my posts on the topic:
http://del.icio.us/eric_boutilier/gpl+cddl
Steven apparently never read Andy’s post — either that, or he read it and chose not to acknowledge it — at least AFAICT.
Because Steven’s article wasn’t about the CDDL per se, and because it acknowledges, addresses and rebutts nothing – just regurgitates old ground and talks about the CDDL itself. It’s an extremely poor rebuttal when considering the content of Steven Vaughan-Nichols’ article. I even acknowledged that the CDDL is not a bad license – by itself. That begs the question, why another license? Why indeed.
I didn’t even talk about GPL compatibility, and Steven Vaughan-Nichols wasn’t even a commentary on the CDDL exclusively but the general direction of such template licenses. I wonder why that would have caused such trouble? What Steven Vaughan-Nichols hinted at, and what I was certainly talking about was the signing over of IP and copyright to Sun on Sun projects (signing the SCA etc.), and when you mention that all hell breaks loose. What does that mean? Well, since Sun holds the copyright they are not obligated by the CDDL to release any internal changes because they are not obligated to apply the CDDL to that code.
Net result? Any contributors are contributing to Sun for nothing, and that’s why Sun (and numerous others) saw fit to create another very similar MPL type license. They are the copyright holders.
In my view, there’s lots of lucid, logical conversation, but I think people can save themselves *a lot* of time by skipping “segedunum’s” apparently uninformed (inflammatory? and and worse, totally anonymous) comments
Stamp, jump and blog about it all you want – the above is the essential truth. I can’t really believe Sun and yourself are still trying to defend it. It’s making an absolute laughing stock of OSI licenses and the open source movement, and hopefully the OSI is realising it. That was Steven Vaughan-Nichols’ point.
You said “I” 5 times in that post.
Who are you?
Eric
You said “I” 5 times in that post.
Who are you?
What a lovely thought provoking reply :-). Thanks.
This is OSNews, a forum, where people are not expected to hand over details of what their identity is. Concentrate on the posts.
That begs the question, why another license? Why indeed.
Because we would not have been able to release any of
the kernel source code at all without a file based
license. Some of kernel components of Solaris are still
encumbered 3rd party code which means we did not have
the rights to distribute the sum of the parts which
constitute ‘the program’. Keep your black helicopter
theories to yourself.
Well, since Sun holds the copyright they are not obligated by the CDDL to release any internal changes because they are not obligated to apply the CDDL to that code.
Well, says who? you?. I know for a fact that code I
have putback into the internal development gate is now
in Opensolaris. I think that says more about Suns
intentions than your speculation.
Some of kernel components of Solaris are still
encumbered 3rd party code which means we did not have
the rights to distribute the sum of the parts which
constitute ‘the program’. Keep your black helicopter
theories to yourself.
The second someone mention ‘black helicopters’ for no apparent reason they’re getting upset. There is no reason in the world another license couldn’t be used to accomplish this.
Well, says who? you?
Says Sun and says the copyright.
I know for a fact that code I have putback into the internal development gate is now in Opensolaris.
Well yes, but Sun decides that. They could just as easily keep that code or take others’ contributions and do other things with them.
I think that says more about Suns intentions than your speculation.
You’ve hit the nail on the head there. ‘Intention’.
Erm, I was responding to this statement made by you:
That begs the question, why another license? Why indeed.
I was telling you why this license was used. Clear?
What ‘other’ license did you have in mind?.
You’ve hit the nail on the head there. ‘Intention’.
Actually, I think the nail was speculation being as I
have proof and you don’t.