Sun Microsystems president and COO Jonathan Schwartz on Thursday cited the company’s plans to eventually offer all of its software for free as a way to build communities around its technologies.
Sun Microsystems president and COO Jonathan Schwartz on Thursday cited the company’s plans to eventually offer all of its software for free as a way to build communities around its technologies.
Is it going to be under GPL ?
It’s great to see they get the whole community building through easy distribution, but I hope they will make it free as in liberty, not just price. It’s very true hardware is the big price today, software has become very easy to create and distribute.
Sorry, plain wrong.
Software is neither “easy” to create, nor is the hardware the “big price”. In fact hardware is almost free except for the home consumer. Software development, maintaince and support costs are at least ten times the price most of the time.
>In fact hardware is almost free
*almost* is a key. Like $500,000 for a mid-range mainframe class computer.
Sure, and the banking software that runs on it is likely to have had a development budget of millions.
>*almost* is a key. Like $500,000 for a mid-range mainframe class computer.
Which are peanuts to the money you can spend for individual software.
what happend to sun’s plans of charging money for it’s software yet giving its hardware away for free?
Open sourced software makes it harder to charge subscription fees as OSS groups will start releasing patches… Red hat even has restrictive licensing on their OS to keep it down.
You heard correctly. Sun has no viable plans to make money from hardware or software.
What restrictive licensing? Everything they put out is GPL!
Free Sun software? Ugh, no thanks. Anyone should be able to tell you the cost of their software and hardware is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of their support contracts you have to take out.
No one actually wants their software, and for a very good reason; that’s their problem. So now their dumping it out hoping we’ll fall for it, and then get trapped in their support. And don’t think you can get away without support, things just don’t work all too frequently. Something go wrong? Call a Sun Engineer. Config problem? Call a Sun Engineer. Doesn’t boot? Call a Sun Engineer.
“Is it going to be under GPL ?
”
I hope not.
If not plan to drop 6 to 7 figures to get yourself up and running for just the software. Then put in extra for hardware,maintence/support etc.
Why would they start thinking about giving away what they use to charge for? Well maybe because not enough customers or potentail customers were willing to pay for what Sun spent billions in development effort. Or maybe because they are more focused on hardware and the software is what will drive people to purchase their hardware. Or a little of both.
Just a thought.
Not quite. Netscape did very little on their server front to create an ecosystem around their software, and when SUN inheriented it, they were more focused on getting their existing customers to either adopt or continue to use it rather than trying to expand its usage.
Coupled that with the fact that creating and eco-system isn’t as easy as saying, “here is our software, embrace it”, SUN needs something that allows customers not only to use it for free but to also have access to the source code as to allow developers to create software solutions around the software stack – don’t be surprised to see Ingres from CA being re-released under CDDL, and made ‘officially’ part of the opensource side of the equation (remember rumours about an opensource database?).
Creating a community and ecosystem take time, it just doesn’t emerge over night; SUN is on the right track, lets hope they do one of their trademark things and say or buy out something stupid.
Well, I’m sceptical because Sun always have a habit of cocking things up like this.
But, it’s certainly good that they’re thinking about new ways of doing things and how they might change. His analogies about other industries, and applying them to IT and software, are certainly interesting. They may or may not succeed, but it’s nice to see that from an organisation because that’s how you survive – by thinking about these things.
When you look at the examples of companies cited in the article, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, it is certainly true that their revenue streams are not set in stone because, simply, nothing is happening with their products. It’s simply money for old rope. Microsoft are more insulated than Oracle or SAP, and if I were either of those two I’d be pretty worried, but even Microsoft’s revenue comes primarily from two sources – Windows and Office. Given that neither of these two pieces of software are going anywhere, the only thing you can do to keep the money coming in is to get people to see the need to upgrade or provide some worthwhile service. Since the former is obviously heavy going right now and Microsoft simply aren’t set up as an organisation to do the latter, the next five to ten years could be quite interesting. Microsoft aren’t going to disppear, but it will be fun to see them grapple with more realistic levels of revenue as the software industry matures more.
what habbit are you talking about? talking to IBM or HP or someone?? They said they’d open source solaris and they’re doing it. they’ve been solid so far. im glade they dropped linux.
what habbit are you talking about? talking to IBM or HP or someone??
Not sure what you mean there because it doesn’t make any sense.
They said they’d open source solaris and they’re doing it. they’ve been solid so far.
There is still no Open Solaris distribution or community, and until there is both there is no Open Solaris. No, Solaris Express or anything else doesn’t count.
im glade they dropped linux.
Sun are still selling Linux, and they’re still using it – they just don’t ant to talk about it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/21/sun_linux_labotamy/
All they seem to want to do is cut the name Linux from press releases.
I think he meant “slums”, not “communities”.
Sun has a skewed definition of the term free. Up to a few weeks ago, they adamantly argued that Java was free. They also have the nasty habbit of fabricating needless and restrictive free licenses.
your wild man… FREE means something is given away at no cost….
Free = $0
Free = open to do what you want.
open sources gives away at no cost and its no cost to modify it and view source.
I sure would hate to go with you to attend some convention where you get free pencils and gifts as you’d complain that it’s not really free.
free
adj. fre·er, fre·est
1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty.
2. Not controlled by obligation or the will of another: felt free to go.
3.
1. Having political independence: “America… is the freest and wealthiest nation in the world” (Rudolph W. Giuliani).
2. Governed by consent and possessing or granting civil liberties: a free citizenry.
3. Not subject to arbitrary interference by a government: a free press.
4.
1. Not affected or restricted by a given condition or circumstance: a healthy animal, free of disease; free from need.
2. Not subject to a given condition; exempt: income that is free of all taxes.
5. Not subject to external restraint: “Comment is free but facts are sacred” (Charles Prestwich Scott).
6. Not literal or exact: a free translation.
7.
1. Costing nothing; gratuitous: a free meal.
2. Publicly supported: free education.
8.
1. Not occupied or used: a free locker.
2. Not taken up by scheduled activities: free time between classes.
9. Unobstructed; clear: a free lane.
10. Unguarded in expression or manner; open; frank.
11. Taking undue liberties; forward or overfamiliar.
12. Liberal or lavish: tourists who are free with their money.
13. Given, made, or done of one’s own accord; voluntary or spontaneous: a free act of the will; free choices.
14. Chemistry & Physics.
1. Unconstrained; unconfined: free expansion.
2. Not fixed in position; capable of relatively unrestricted motion: a free electron.
3. Not chemically bound in a molecule: free oxygen.
4. Involving no collisions or interactions: a free path.
5. Empty: a free space.
6. Unoccupied: a free energy level.
15. Nautical. Favorable: a free wind.
16. Not bound, fastened, or attached: the free end of a chain.
17. Linguistics.
1. Being a form, especially a morpheme, that can stand as an independent word, such as boat or bring.
2. Being a vowel in an open syllable, as the o in go.
adv.
1. In a free manner; without restraint.
2. Without charge.
I know, the subtleties of language are hard to grasp sometimes.
Not a bad list, and yet somehow the definition of Free doesn’t mention GPL or giving of source code. Interesting
This just goes back to wanting to kick the person who highjacked the word free for being the term used when talking about opensource software.
Give society our word back so we can use it properly!
Java *is* free. Their implementation is free as in “it costs nothing” and the Java spec is documented and available for free as in “freedom to modify”. There are even a few partially complete implementations of that spec.
The Schwartz seems clear to me: “We’ve been trying to faithfully explore how to deliver our products and technologies for free,”. It means that Schwartz wants Sun to be like Oracle, you can get its software for free, but the source code is off limits.
The key confusion is that English doesn’t distinguish between “freedom to modify” and “free as in cost”. Other languages do (e.g. libre versus gratis).
Open source captures some of what it means, but most laymen think open source just means that you can look but not touch the source code. “Freedom source” or “Liberty source” captures it better, but it sounds too hokey and jingoistic.
Personally, if I were the FSF, I’d just use the phrase “Libre software” and explain what it means. English already imports the word “Gratis” (see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gratis ) so my not libre? It would definitely get rid of this “free as in beer” versus “free as in freedom” confusion. It doesn’t make any sense to most people anyway. Beer is rarely free and “look but don’t touch source” code is generally free to use for any purpose.
this news was reported long long ago.. I’ve even made comments on this story in many other sections.
I also think this is a dumb move, very dumb. WAit.. then again… companies usually open source to keep dieing software alive.
Since Schwartz failed managing sun’s software business when he was VP of that group, maybe it’s a smart move as how else can they possibily sell their software? He seems much better as the COO though.
but CDDL licensend software is not free.
hahaha it’s not free? it fits everyone craze definitions.
Just because it’snot compatible with the GPL, your beloved GPL that you have stabled to the walls of your home, you think it’s not free. The additional protections that protect organizations and companies (as well as consumers) isn’t good? ..there are loads of licneses not compatible with the GPL. big deal.
…”uh huh, that aint free, it aint compatible wit da gpl” Open your mind brother because the GPL is not the constitution of your country therefore you dont have to worship it
Even the Free Software Foundation says that the CDDL is a free software license. You can find it under here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicens…
Even the Free Software Foundation says that the CDDL is a free software license.
Well, I don’t have to agree with every statement by the FSF. I’m not even interested in the compatibility to other licenses. Imho a software license that actively allows and builds on patented encumbered code (free of charge for the particular application and its derivates, but _not_ other software) is not free. Listing the CDDL as a free license is plain dumb.
The GPL is too viral to be considered free. Nobody except FSF zealots think the GPL is free.
Congratulations, your post is the most ignorant post I’ver ever seen.
hahaha it’s not free? it fits everyone craze definitions.
What is that supposed to mean? I think the word you were looking for is crazy not craze but then that sentence still makes no sense.
Just because it’snot compatible with the GPL, your beloved GPL that you have stabled to the walls of your home, you think it’s not free.
Stabled? What? Do you mean stapled? Now it makes sense, it’s just a dumb comment.
The additional protections that protect organizations and companies (as well as consumers) isn’t good?
I guess you are referring to the GPL and no they are not good because the GPL protects the user and the developer. Propietary licenses just protect companies at the expense of the user and developer.
there are loads of licneses not compatible with the GPL. big deal.
This is true. Nothing else to see here. Just because there are “loads of licenses not compatible with the GPL” doesn’t mean that any one of them is better than the GPL. It doesn’t mean the opposite either. In fact it doesn’t actually mean anything.
…”uh huh, that aint free, it aint compatible wit da gpl” Open your mind brother because the GPL is not the constitution of your country therefore you dont have to worship it
This definitely takes the cake. The GPL is not the constitution? Thanks for the history lesson. Let me let you in on a little secret, if you are worshipping the constitution then you need to get a life. The state is not a religion. The constitution is also extremely flawed and not something I think even an idiot should worship.
FSF/GNU doesn’t get to define free no matter how much you worship Stallman
They have more authority on the subject than some random idiot on the internet who’s hiding behind anonymity.
And don’t bother accusing me of hypocrisy, I don’t care.
Like the apple, mozilla, apache, apple, bsd and other non GPL licenses the Sun license allows the study and modification of source code that’s better than nothig. Saying that an OSS license is not good because of the copyleft or non-copyleft issue is plain wrong IMO.
It will be interesting if Sun truly releases their compiler as open source. gcc will have a true run for it’s money. The ‘Studio’compiler (previously Forte) has hundreds of man years of effort put into it and it performs quite well. It produces slightly smaller and faster code than gcc and has a large team of dedicated people supporting it.
Here is web page listing some dates:
http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/cc/support/CCcompare.html
This could potentially be another compiler that could be use cross platform. Compilers that are cross platform will have a higher chance of evolving to the next platform that is created.
Hopefully Alpha will stage a comeback.
From what I have heard, they haven’t said anything about making it opensource, but from what I have heard, they may make a it free for non-commercial use or free for Solaris/CDDL development, or something to that affect.
Sun is getting a clue. This is great news. I think Sun will build a good ecosystem for their company over time and will survive and prosper.
It’s one of the least free open source licenses out there. That’s because Stallman is a socialist and hates freedom.
Your understanding of freedom matches your understanding of socialism, sadly …
He means free as in open source. Otherwise why mention communities built around them? Besides that, a lot of Sun’s stuff is already free as in cost.
If Star Office is free I have to wonder where Open Office is going to go… Maybe they’d merge?
Will this mean Sun will eventually become a hardware+services only company? Or will they be like the Mozilla foundation: 300 paid programmers AND OSS-programmers, besides their other buisnesses?
Regardless of the license (of course I love the GPL, but I can accept other licenses as well) I am looking forward to the day when Solaris will have enough good software to make it a worthy desktop OS.
That is something M$ should be very worried about.
Although there are many different licenses out there.. I do believe that all ‘Open Source’ software should at least be compatible with one common denominator. Really, for Linux/HURD (as distributions) etc to survive they depend on the work of many many other projects – adding complications and denying the ability to include important libraries etc due to small technical inconsistancies between licenses will do more harm than good. If developers can go in there with a clear understanding with what they can do – perhaps we can attract more people to the movement?
I have an idea. Why don’t we all agree not to turn every article into a discussion of open source licenses or the definition of “free?”
Also, can we resist the temptation to dismiss progress on the basis that it doesn’t fix every problem with the previous state?
Thanks.
It’s interesting to me that no one has really pointed out what looks to be a move toward a pure consulting fashion ala what IBM is attempting to do.
Jon Schwartz weblog says “It’s far easier to convince a customer to pay for a product they’re already using, than one they haven’t even tried.”
To me it looks like they want customers, especially enterprise level customers, to take their software and maybe even their code and then “paint themselves into a corner” so they call Sun and say “Hey, this Ultra 9000 Database SQL 9.2 is totally great for what we do, but we, uhh …, need it to handle 1.1 Million tables, not just 1 Million. Anything you can do for us?”
At which point Sun is more than happy to set the customer up on a support agreement and make some alterations to the software “just for them” type of thing.
Just look at the new Ultra 20 Workstation. It’s actually a pretty cool AMD 64 system, and one that Sun is willing to hand you for “free” (Oh no, here come all the complaints again with use of that word.)
You sign a 3 year Sun Support Contract, which includes support for the hardware, the software installed on (of which it includes the Java Studio software) and pay what equates out to $29.95 a month. You pay annually, so you actually make three payments of like $360.00 and Sun hands you the Ultra 20 free.
So that they know you’ll be coming back with questions, etc, during that time. Hopefully you’ll come back a lot. Not to say they want their product to be bad, but they want to prove to you that their service is second to none. Make you feel secure, and calm about using them so that at the end of the three year contract, you’ll opt for another one, maybe with another free workstation at the time.
This isn’t about Sun dying as a company, as such, but more that Sun (along with Apple) can see the writing on the wall. Hardware is becoming a toaster. Very commodity. Who cares what processor is in the box (ala Apple) so long as the customer gets the user experience we need them too so they come back again next time. Software, thanks in a very very large part to Linux, is becoming Open in the sense that we can take the time to code our own items to interlink with other software again. Haven’t been able to do that so readily since the C64 days.
So if hardware is super cheap, and software is less than cheap, how can an enterprising business make money? Buy selling the blades. Whether that be iPods or songs, or support for the whole package. Only Microsoft hasn’t really seemed to grasp the whole concept that per license software is becoming a dinosaur, and though it won’t be tomorrow, it also won’t be 10 years from now either, software will be like the razors. You give the CD of softs away with the knowledge that the customer will come back to buy other items.
An exciting new strategy every year. What I’d rather see is one good strategy that they can hold on to for a decade, with fine-tune adjustments made along the way.
Opening most of the Solaris and J2SE source is probably a good move. Committing yourself to give away *all* of your software the way Red Hat does, and becoming dependent on service contracts doesn’t sound feasible for a company with Sun’s payroll. Customers may look for a lower cost mode of support for Sun’s software, just like you and I might take our car to the corner garage instead of back to the dealer for maintenance.
Paul G
Java cannot be included by default in free Linux distributions because of it’s license. Hence the push for free java.
Sun software may be open source but comes with many restrictions. Just say no to Sun and CDDL!
What does Java and CDDL have to do with anything ? – Java is released und scsl. If you don’t have a clue as to what your talking about, please dont participate.
And for that matter, why the company names in the topic? – you are aware that sun uses many licenses, as does redhat.
I like Sun, but when looking at the market flow .. and comparing it with the movements Sun is doing … two things or they are having serious problems or they are planning a long plan re-invention .. I’m waiting to see their market results this quarter… Let see.
It’s not really a free license. You can’t do what you want with it because of so many viral restrictions. The BSD is a free license as all logical people know.
Everybody knows that the GPL is dying. Nobody wants to be associated with the virus.
It’s not really a free license. You can’t do what you want with it because of so many viral restrictions. The BSD is a free license as all logical people know.
Everybody knows that the GPL is dying. Nobody wants to be associated with the virus
Lol, you little 13 year old kids saying the idiotic things you do cracks me up.
Of course, if you are not 13, and are in-fact an adult that says things like this, I do really truly feel sorry for you.
Yet another delirious anonymous. Why don’t you post this crap as registered user? Too much of a coward, I suppose.
It’s been going on for a long time now:
– sun loves linux
– sun hates linux
– sun decides linux is java
– sun loves linux – but only for the desktop
– sun hates linux again
– sun supports x86 solaris
– sun doesn’t support x86
– sun supports x86 linux again
– sun hates msft
– sun is bed with msft
And so on. Sun has some great technology – mostly left-over from the early 90’s. But sun has to be the confused, and indecisive, company, that I can imagine.
Remove SUN and replace it with IBM, and you’d get a pretty accurate picture as well.
If sun is smart they will ditch the cddl and release everything as GPL, LGPL or BSD. I don’t give a damn what the FSF says the cddl is a stupid license and should not be considered free. Using a license that is incompatible with all other free software is not going to increase its usage.
I love sun and I run nothing but solaris on my servers but their open source talk is a joke. Other than openoffice they have done nothing right on the open source front.
Until he says that, he’s not credible – not when Sun is removing all references to Linux from their PR materials as another recent story in the Register revealed. The article mentions “Java middleware”, not Java itself.
In any event, IBM’s recent moves to support the Harmony Project to build an open-source clone of Java indicates that project will be taken seriously.
So one way or the other, Sun will open-source Java whether they like it or not.
The CDDL is great and the community has decided that the GPL is not free.
sun releasing java as gpl….. fat chance… that will be an absolute last resort if sun sees it’s market dwindling to nothing….. java is sun’s baby.
one more point in regards to gpl dieing….. hehehehehe…. that’s funny… gpl i stronger than it ever was and chances are it will continue to get stronger
I am afraid it is too late now.
If Sun had went the “let’s open everything and build” when Linux started to grow, it might have been a different world now. But now with Linux, they are dead on this path.
They need developers. They need to attract people.
And people that left for Linux will not turn to Solaris.
Too late.
(gilbert.fernandes -at_ wanadoo =dot= fr)
A couple of years ago I TRIED yes tried to buy some software from SUN. This was just their C/C++ compiler. It was in the US Price list ok but SUN UK could not sell it to me as the same part was not in the UK price list. Sure they said, buy the full Sun Studio. No I said I have all the code and a makefile beside, you sell it in the US. Begin endless loop.
After about a dozen attempts I gave up and installed GNU/C but I couldn’t get the plugin I was developing (works ok on Windows & Linux) to load correctly. In the end, I found someone with a full Sun Studio installed who was willing to run the makefile for me to produce the binary.
If this decision results in me being able to get the compiler to develop for the SPARC/Solaris platform again then great. But as they say, “I’ll wait until I see it for real”
So SUN now wants free labor from programmers for profits sounds good to me it’s a great idea as long it brings in that counts the money.
Sun’s execs seem to suffer from multiple personality or something. Every other week they change their mind about freeing java. Show me a free java jdk and runtime and then we’ll talk about the rest. I mean, they’re a hardware and services company, what do they have to lose by making their software free? They could learn a lesson or two from IBM.
And now that HP is almost out of business thanks to that Carly bitch and their new idiotic CEO and SGI isn’t even a major player in the server arena Sun is mostly the only Unix player together with Fujitsu and IBM.
if your in the market for a mainframe half a mill isnt all that much….
incredible how relative cost is 😉
“Moore’s Law refers to a statement by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that said the industry should be able to double the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months or so. Some in the industry, however, have believed the end is near for Moore’s law.”
Nobody has yet commented on the last line, i would like add just a little bit..
The intel pentium 1 came out 1993 followed by pentium pro in 1995, mmx 1997 ,pentium 2 1997, celeron 1998, pentium 2 Xeon 1998, pentium 3 1999, celeron based 2000, pentium 4 2000 – present , i have not mentioned everyhing in detail, or from the start, i guess Itanium 2, pentium D , em64 t shows that chips are still being manufactured every 18 months, weather the transistors are doubled in them, progress is still being made fairly quickly. I cite only intel as the law was devised by the co-founder of intel.
By making all software free, Sun’s going to ensure that IBM is going to be forced to give away all its software or be painted into a corner as not an open source company.
The GPL is worse than a proprietary license. Sun is very clever.
thats the only way they will survive.
“Sun is very clever.”
Absolutely, they are. While the fanboys and zealots are making lots of noise over this and that license and this and that not GPL-compatible, quietly professional programmers and businesses are thinking “Aha!” with respect to the CDDL. It is a very pragmatic license that adds enough to quell fears about the BSD license while avoiding the problems and politics of the GPL.
Sun spent years on this problem, and it isn’t like they just pulled the CDDL out of their asses. If Sun releases all their source code under it, there’ll be a body of tens (hundreds?) of millions of LOC of software available as open source, all of which is production-ready commercial code and not some version 0.01q-pre-alpha-beta-2 POS from SourceForge.
Man, if they release Sun Studio as OSS, I’ll shit a brick. It is an awesome compiler suite and currently costs something like $3000/seat. I’d bet they could do it, too, now that the CDDL addresses patents and such.
Take a look on opensolaris.org – the compilers are FREE now…
…quietly professional programmers and businesses are thinking “Aha!” with respect to the CDDL.
Are they really? Where?
Sun spent years on this problem, and it isn’t like they just pulled the CDDL out of their asses. If Sun releases all their source code under it, there’ll be a body of tens (hundreds?) of millions of LOC of software available as open source…
You can have as many millions of lines of code as you like, but if the license does not create a fair atmosphere that allows non-Sun people to contribute fairly then it will simply gather dust. The CDDL is a license that will stop cross-pollination with other open source projects and will ensure that all of what you produce stays under Sun’s control. What open source developer is going to go for that?
How successful do you think Microsoft’s Shared Source scheme has been? Same difference.
…all of which is production-ready commercial code and not some version 0.01q-pre-alpha-beta-2 POS from SourceForge.
Sorry, but that’s exactly what Open Solaris is at this point.
Man, if they release Sun Studio as OSS, I’ll shit a brick. It is an awesome compiler suite and currently costs something like $3000/seat.
That would rather cheese off the people who’ve forked out money for it, wouldn’t it? 😉
>>
Remove SUN and replace it with IBM, and you’d get a pretty accurate picture as well.
<<
I don’t see that at all. How has IBM been flip-flopping on their basic business philosophy like sun?
Please note: I’m not saying that IBM has never changed direction. Over the last two years, sun has changed direction about six times. Do you the same is true of IBM?
Make the JavaVM free Sun! tnx
“You can have as many millions of lines of code as you like, but if the license does not create a fair atmosphere that allows non-Sun people to contribute fairly then it will simply gather dust.”
I don’t care about FSF politics. I do care about having access to source code for debugging or adding features that _I_ need. Nearly any OSS license, including the CDDL, satisfies that need. I’m a non-Sun person, and I do understand that the CDDL allows me to contribute fairly–in that I can choose to and not be forced to under some FSF mandate.
I don’t care about FSF politics.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with FSF politics. You might want to pull that FSF thing you have out of your backside.
I do care about having access to source code for debugging or adding features that _I_ need.
Yes, and who’s going to do it? You’re not going to do it by yourself. To do that you need a community, and you need a community to be attracted by the afirness of the project, and to do that you need an appropriate license…..
Nearly any OSS license, including the CDDL, satisfies that need.
No it doesn’t. You obviously haven’t read the CDDL, or understood how GPL software like Linux works in terms of code contribution. There are different licenses for different things and different circumstances, but ultimately, for a large project like Linux or Open Solaris, you need code continually being put in. If part of it is proprietary, or some people aren’t pulling their weight and contributing equally by making their own properietary extensions, it isn’t going to work. That’s been a huge part of Linux’s success over BSD and other similar systems.
I’m a non-Sun person, and I do understand that the CDDL allows me to contribute fairly
You haven’t read the CDDL. It simply isn’t fair at all. Unless you can cross-pollinate with code from other projects (which you can’t do with the CDDL) or even link (which you can’t do with the CDDL), and make sure the code stays open, and Sun gives up the control they’ve put in the CDDL it isn’t fair.
Sorry, but for a non-Sun person, saying that isn’t going to make any difference.
Exactly what CDDL clause prohibits from “crosspolination”? And what do you mean by crosspolination?
You do have to contribute files licensed under CDDL if you’ve changed them. Sounds fair enough to me.
Thanks,
Dmitri
Java2D Team
Free and still overpriced.
Sun cracks me up.
Did you hear, software is free this week!
Why does the GPL matter in this case? Because my software is free this week and will be free next week and every week thereafter. Not only is my GPL software free, but so are its bug and security updates, enhancements, and all future releases.
The difference is only your money, and possibly your time, should you choose not to spend that money.