CDDL (or more specifically, a code licensed under the CDDL) can be considered as consisting of two portions: the GPL portion and the proprietary portion. If enough manpower (gender neutral) can be mustered to eliminate the need for the proprietary code, then Sun can easily re-license OpenSolaris under GPL.
But doing that would also defeat what I believe as perhaps the best advantage of CDDL, in that it allows hardware manufacturers to have their proprietary driver included in the kernel. So far, unfortunately, I am not sensing any action to educate hardware makers of this advantage. Many embedded device makers in Taiwan (though many of their products are made in China) treat the GPL'd Linux as if they were under BSD, or at best, under CDDL (i.e, keeping at least some code proprietary). Since many of these products are sold in the US, this is a time bomb waiting to be exploded. OTOH, does anyone really believe that the terms of GPL can be enforced in China--the next biggest market for all IP products? This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
