I found this reading through the Slashdot thread about GPLing Java and the
potentially of GPLing OpenSolaris.
Something inference about Sun taking a bribe from MS to make OpenSolaris less
'free' or 'open'?
Anybody know anything about this or it the usual FUD?
-------------------------------- Slashdot posting
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Wow, I nailed that on the head just this morning [slashdot.org] (about half an
hour after the blog entry that I didn't know about); to me, this seemed obvious.
I can't help but think that the MS-Novell deal was the inspiration for this
going into completion; the final straw, so to speak (or at least, the reason
for the timing of the announcement). Consider it; Novell uses Mono and just got
in bed with Microsoft.
Sun is in trouble, and according to FSF Lawyer Eben Moglen's (wild) allegations
in his talk at a recent Free Software Foundation Associate Members [fsf.org]hip
meeting, they previously (2005?) took a bribe from Microsoft to keep
OpenSolaris incompatible with the GPL (in exchange for financing they believed
was desperately needed for miniaturizing CPU size with Fujitsu to compete with
IBM(?) in the server market). Sun is now flip-flopping like a struggling
politician; they caved to the pressure of GPL'ing Java despite (allegedly)
accepting a bribe to keep Solaris less free. Like many on Slashdot, I consider
the FSF and the F/OSS development community greater long-term allies than
Microsoft, so maybe Sun will release Solaris 11 or 12 under the GPL.
The Free Software Foundation has made no announcements on either of these
developments. What does this mean for the GCC/Java code, which is largely
functional? How would GPL'ed Solaris utilities impact use and development of
the GNU utilities? (Yes, I realize that the Solaris utilities share code with
BSD utilities given their common ancestors, but Solaris has the shiny
stamp-of-approval from major security auditors.)
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