Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
Tracy R Reed wrote:
Correction: It is licensed under the CDDL. Which is apparently
incompatible with GPLv2. I could have sworn Sun released something under
the GPLv3 recently just because they didn't want its code to be able to
be used in the Linux kernel...
Excuse me? Here let's turn this around: "Well, if Linux just sucked it
up and switched its license to GPLv2 or later/BSD/MIT, they wouldn't
have this problem."
See the problem with your argument now?
Not really as I do wish Linux would get switched to GPLv2 or later.
First, the CDDL doesn't stop the *BSD folks. So, what does Sun gain?
Even *if* their decisions slow down Linux, stuff will just move to
FreeBSD. Sun, in fact, has been working *really hard* to help get ZFS
ported as far and wide as possible. Linus *rejected* their help.
BSD is a pretty well marginalized OS that isn't displacing nearly as
much Solaris as Linux is.
Second, Linux *chose* to be "GPLv2 only" instead of "GPLv2 or later".
The fact that choice is starting to bite is a Linux problem--not a Sun
problem. Linux wanted to make a statement with its license and now has
to live with the consequences.
I'm not sure how much of a problem it really is yet but if it is a
problem it seems Sun isn't afraid to exploit it.
Third, the code flows from Sun to Linux *FAR* more than the other way
around. See: huge quantities of Gnome, OpenOffice, RPC, NFS, DTrace,
and now Java. For a Linux person to be griping about the exchange being
unfair kinda drives home the point about open source folks being greedy,
ungrateful bastards.
I'm not saying it's unfair. They can license their code however they
like. I'm just pointing out their strategy. They don't stand to make
much money directly off of the things you mention above because they are
pretty much commoditized. But it seems they would like to stop people
from moving to Linux/x86 from Solaris/Sparc since that remains their
bread and butter. Gnome was already GPL'd before Sun got involved,
OpenOffice is a commodity, RPC is ancient and best not used these days,
ditto for NFS (invented all the way back in 1984 along with RPC. These
20+ year old examples always get thrown out when it comes to example of
Sun sharing code) if only we had something better to replace it but
Linux's NFS was implemented from scratch IIRC (if it weren't it would be
of Sun or BSD origin and you would be much happier with its respect of
filesystem semantics, right?). Java was an attempt to lock people into
Sun's language much like C# is Microsoft's belated attempt (and Java
rip-off) but they didn't really succeed with the lock-in after the whole
browser applet thing crashed in the early days. Are any of the BSD's
even bundling Sun's Java as part of their standard install or have it
available for install from a package repository? ZFS and DTrace are the
only things left I might like to have and coincidentally they are both
things that would have to be integrated into the Linux kernel and have
an incompatible license. GPL was good enough for Sun's involvement with
Gnome, OpenOffice, and various other things but not things that directly
touch the Linux kernel which could cost them some Solaris/Sparc sales.
Linus chose the license. If it's causing problems, bitch to Linus.
For the most part it isn't. This ZFS thing is the only case of any
license problems between Sun and Linux that has kept something out of
the kernel that I might want to play with. And if it's really that great
I'm sure someone will code up a Linux implementation of the same ideas
unless Sun goes software-patent lawsuit crazy on us. That would be
interesting. We could watch them play "We're good community citizens,
here's a bunch of code!" to "Don't implement your own or we'll sue!". It
just seems to me that Sun has always been rather schizophrenic in their
treatment of the FOSS community and although I'm grateful for their
contributions in certain areas I don't completely trust them in all areas.
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