"C. Bergstr?m" writes: > When working with ON I'm faced with an interesting complication at times > in that I need to identify the license to a patch. A situation where > this already exists in ON is with krb.. Some (most) is MIT, but the Sun > parts are licensed under CDDL.. (Not the concern here at all and just an > example) However, one of the reasons I think that Sun *must* currently > have copyright to all new patches from external contributors is so that > they can track the legalities of code in case of the need for future > vetting/lawyer bs.. etc..
Note that copyright and license aren't the same thing, and that many things in OpenSolaris are not under CDDL. I think you'd need to speak with a Sun lawyer to find out why the terms of the SCA are as they are, but your guesses seem reasonable. > Is being able to track a license to a patch valuable to anyone else? yes/no Track what where and in what way? By "patch," I don't know if you're referring to diffs on a source file, updated binaries, both, or perhaps something else. The copyright indicates who wrote the work. Tracking currently is done in source files and (where required by license) in binary packages. There's some automation for this in ON, but it's fairly simple. The license (unlike the copyright) specifies how one may use the work, and is often different between source and binaries. As a developer, I'd like to see terms of use tracked in some way so that (for example) when I link against a library, I know what terms that library was offered under, and I can determine whether (and how) I'll be able to comply with those terms. I'm not sure if that's what you had in mind, though, or how such a thing would actually function. (More linker magic?) -- James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson at sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
