Sun Microsystems is expected to release Solaris as open-source software Tuesday, a centerpiece of the company’s plan to regain lost relevance and fend of rivals Red Hat, IBM and Microsoft.
Sun begins open-source Solaris era
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That depends on if it’s Free. If it’s just opened there is no assurance that Sun won’t dissappear and leave it untouchable.
And we all know Sun’s days are unfortunately numbered.
How can you say Sun’s days are numbered? on what premise do you base this allegation?
From where I stand things look up.
There’s plenty of reasons not to use Solaris, like you just don’t prefer it. There are plenty of reasons to use it, such as when you do prefer it.
“open sores”. How apt! Now what was that about ‘OSS hippies’?
I’m happy to see it released, and I’m very curious to use it, but I wonder sometimes at the attitude of Sun. They’ve been talking about Open Solaris like the second coming, and it hasn’t even been released yet.
Some (inside and outside of Sun) have been talking like there are tens of thousands of people who suffered under Linux, and will be freed of the penguin oppressor finally. I’m not so sure that’s the case.
After all, with the over 1 million downloads of Solaris 10, Solaris hasn’t exactly been a hit. Of course, that could change.
And Johnathan Schwartz… where to begin. The indignation and arrogance of his posts, chiding the feeble masses and press for not seeing his vision and how obvious his perception is, you’d think he was the president of a super sucessful company, instead of one that has been in steady decline.
I still don’t count Sun out. Boastfulness aside, they do have a spiffy OS and technology, and they don’t get enough credit for the things they’ve done right (of course, they’ve done a few things wrong).
We shall see. At least it’s good drama!
OpenSolaris will be here for a year or two. And then Sun will realize no one cares about Solaris. Or expensive commodity hardware.
You cannot take Solaris and do what you (or your company) wants to do with. For money.
I would not be surprised if Sun is not “the second coming of SCO” in 5-10 years claiming everyone copied the precious code of Solaris. The maniacal Microsoft stooge that runs Sun would be even more entertaining than Darl McBride.
“You cannot take Solaris and do what you (or your company) wants to do with. For money. ”
Yes you can. This is just a pure lie. Can you take apache or mozilla and do what you want for money? Yep, and you can with OpenSolaris too. If you are referring to the transfer of copyright when you submit something back to the project, look around, most major project require the same thing. It’s how they can enforce copyright violations themselves.
The linux fanboys must really feel threatened by OpenSolaris for the amount of lies and crap they try to spread increases increases daily. If you don’t want to use OS, don’t, but don’t spread FUD just so others can’t use it either.
> OpenSolaris will be here for a year or two. And then Sun will realize no one cares about Solaris. Or expensive commodity hardware.
Dude, did even hear yourself talk? Fist off, there is no such thing as expensive commodity hardware, it is an oximoron. Second of all, Sun hardware nowdays is cheapest on the market, even cheaper than Dell’s. Third, millions care about Solaris *a lot*. Remember Solaris is still a more deployed platform than any of the Linux distribution. Solaris 10 is already a hit and received accolades from pretty much every IT publication out there. Actually it seems like Solaris already reversed the tide on on both RedHat and M$. Solaris 10 is just too good not care, it is the absolute best OS on the market right now, both technically and as bang for the buck.
> You cannot take Solaris and do what you (or your company) wants to do with. For money.
What the hell does that mean? If you’re talking about the money, then Solaris is a much better/cheaper alternative to pretty much any Linux distribution out there. Solaris is almost two times cheaper to lincense and support than RedHat or SuSE and a *whole* lot cheaper than Windows. Solaris is an absolute steal if you consider the value you get for the money (or no money for that matter).
I did not expect to actually follow through on open sourcing their operating system but they actually did it! I am very impressed… I hope their market share doesn’t decline too dramtically because they have been innovators in many many areas of computing (networking, dtrace, staroffice, etc.)
I hope your Niagra chip beats most others, if you can squeeze more throughput out of your niagara chip, then you will have an easier time regaining market share. I would imagine that both Oracle and SAP both will want to port to the Niagara chip because more CPUs threads means more throughput for their app (not exactly, but in general more CPUs on the same core is great for increasing throughput).
> I would imagine that both Oracle and SAP both will want to port to the Niagara chip
Actually no porting will be required whatsoever, Niagara appears just like a bunch of UltraSparc cores to any application software. The only thing that would be beneficial to have before migrating to Niagara is the software should be optimized well enough to take full advantage of a large number of threads.
how immature, name calling. I swear only slashdot and osnews bloggers know what what the slang turn troll really means.
You trolls are really funny. How come you can’t see that Solaris and Linux should be complimentary instead of competitive? OSS likes diversity, not the other way around. The more people who come to the party, the better (just so long as those that come to the party are there to party and not crash it).
And the more Solaris joins the OSS community, the less you will see a difference between Linux and Solaris, as each will start sharing their technology. And hopefully someday, most distro’s will ship with both a Linux and a Solaris kernel. Boot in one, create VM’s and run your apps in appropriate containers ran by appropriate kernels.
So listen up Solaris and Linux fanboys. Start thinking about how to get along instead of looking for ways to stroke your egos. Together we win, divided we lose. It’s that simple.
Well….Open Solaris ships under CDDL whereas Linux is under the GPL. And as both licences are not supposed to work with each other many of the open solaris tools like dtrace cannot be legally ported to linux.
If a programmer takes a piece of OpenSolaris code out of OpenSolaris and incorporates it into another project, that programmer will get a blanket patent grant, he said. OpenSolaris or other CDDL code may be used in proprietary projects or in open-source projects covered by CDDL and several other licenses, including BSD and Mozilla licenses, Goguen said.
What is there more to say?
This is also positiv:
OpenSolaris also comes with intellectual property rights not found in Linux, though some including IBM, Red Hat and now Nokia have pledged not to sue if they find Linux infringes their patents.
These are interesting times.What is needed is a tough healthy competition.Allthough i most of the times use Linux
to tackle my goals i allways like to see the OS horizon evolve and getting new “members”.
@Galbotrix
Well….Open Solaris ships under CDDL whereas Linux is under the GPL. And as both licences are not supposed to work with each other many of the open solaris tools like dtrace cannot be legally ported to linux.
That’s actually incorrect. Legally it could be ported to Linux, and it could work on Linux. However, it could not be incorporated directly into the mainline kernel. It would have to be distributed as a seperate project.
The code can’t be directly incorperated, but the technology can be studied and then a rewritten implimentation can be made and released under the GPL.
Linux isn’t Unix, it’s Unix like. Everyone freely admits that.
As for bye bye Linux, you’re forgetting the community behind the GPL. Linux is the GPL’s flagship kernel and I don’t see the GPL community going away anytime soon. If all you can see is the business side of things, then you too will follow the path of SCO.
Other than that, I would rate your troll to be about a 3/10, it was pretty weak. But you did have a good inflamatory bite so you do get some points.
And the more Solaris joins the OSS community, the less you will see a difference between Linux and Solaris, as each will start sharing their technology. And hopefully someday, most distro’s will ship with both a Linux and a Solaris kernel. Boot in one, create VM’s and run your apps in appropriate containers ran by appropriate kernels.
From what I understand Sun have created a licence that make it hard for Solaris technology to spread into other open source projects using more commonly used licenses such as the GPL.
This would mean that a Solaris Linux unification would have to take place on the Solaris side and as the community around a free Solaris currently is quite small, if at all existent, that may take some time.
> From what I understand Sun have created a licence that make it hard for Solaris technology to spread into other open source projects using more commonly used licenses such as the GPL.
What makes you think that? From where I stand CDDL actually offers me more freedom since it doesn’t have the viral clause and allows me to link against CDDL libraries without the phenomenal GPL headachess. CDDL is easier to deal with and and more comfortable than GPL. As soon as you shake off the religious prejudice with GPL, you’ll see that…
> People like you are blind idiots. Can you take a MSFT DLL and modify it then install it with your app? NO you can’t. It’s no Different. You are just to ignorant of the fact that since the Source code is there and your a lazy programmer so you cheat, by cutting corners.
Did you even understand what you’ve blabbered there yourself? What Microsoft DLL’s have to do with anything?! It is probably the dubest parallel you could have drawn. CDDL lets you use the source just as GPL does, only it doesn’t create the increadible headaches with linking. If you want to see a hands on example what a train wreck GPL is in that regard, just check the device driver interface to the Linux kernel with wrappers and a bunch of other garbage that is there just to have a layer of isolation between GPL and private code. CDDL is easier and more comfortable to use for any developer that has any sort of commercial interest in software (that’s about 99% of developers out there). Lay off your GPL Kool Aid and use your brain for a change if you have one.
“Now that it’s open sores, you OSS hippies have no reason NOT to use Solaris”
Yeah, except I can easily get whatever OSS running on Linux.
oh, and I also get real nvidia drivers, can run cedega, turboprint (might be available for solaris?)
Can we just call these threads Solaris vs Linux: <insert
real subject here> in future.
Back to the topic…
@Anonymous (IP: —.home.cgocable.net)
The code can’t be directly incorperated, but the technology can be studied and then a rewritten implimentation can be made and released under the GPL.
Not really. There are patents involved and it’s very hard to
‘study’ something and re-implement it without infringing
copyright.
@Uno Engborg (IP: —.sp.m.bonet.se)
From what I understand Sun have created a licence that make it hard for Solaris technology to spread into other open source projects using more commonly used licenses such as the GPL.
Well. We chose the best license to provide the most value to
our customers and shareholders. Are you upset that you can’t just cherry pick the code you like?
@peragrin (IP: —.rochester.res.rr.com)
Your post is nonsense. The Solaris source code is being released under the CCDL license along with the associated patent indemnification for the inventions contained therein.
You can’t revoke the CDDL license from these files, any modifications to these files must be distributed. You can
take CDDL files and mix them with your own proprietary files
if you like and there is no clause that the result must be
released wholesale under the CDDL, only those files which were already under CDDL. It is GPL that is not compatible with CDDL. If you are saying that if you take a Sun patent,
even one released under the CDDL, and implement it in your
own proprietary or GPL code then Sun can sue you then
are right. We are giving open source and open standards not
freebies for the lazy and/or unimaginative. You are basically being given a lot of $$ worth of R&D under a very
liberal license. Please see the following links for more
information (and less FUD):
http://www.opensolaris.org/faq/licensing_faq.html
@ Johan Krüger-Haglert (IP: —.017-5-6f72652.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se)
You can run the same OSS on Solaris and you can get real
Nvidia drivers as well now. Whats your point?
@ foo (IP: —.hsd1.ca.comcast.net)
Re: Niagara && market share.
If your considerations are real estate, HVAC and power
(performance/watt) then you are going to want to have a very
close look at this chip. It’s so much better than Xeon
in perf/w it’s actually not funny. Your UNIX market share
comments are interesting. Most figures touted are revenue
shares in which we are declining (very small though).
However, if you look at unit shipments we outship our nearest rivals (IBM) more than 2:1 and have a %44 marketshare (IDC’s q105 UNIX server shipment figures). Sure
revenue is nice but volume is better long term when trying
to grow your business.
Oh, and thanks for the support from people who appreciate
what we are doing.
Sun pre-announces once again that OpenSolaris will appear “really soon now!!” And I just visited their site… nothing yet.
But anyway, what does it matter? Open Solaris isn’t going to get much of a community behind it.
What interests me is that there appears to be a number of Sun employees and/or paid shills trolling OSNews for Sun. Some of these comments are beyond troll, they smell as strongly of astroturf as anything I can remember.
I suppose I should update my Solaris boxes to v10, tho. Just so that they won’t be so damned slow anymore.
You can run the same OSS on Solaris and you can get real
Nvidia drivers as well now. Whats your point?
Where’re the x86_64 ones?
i have always been a really big fan of solaris, it makes a great server and development platform. Both which are my primary uses for my linux box. but it’s missing a major killer app: vmware. i need to run windows on my development box to do testing of internet apps on that other browser, but without a rock solid fast program like vmware to use i dont think i’ll make the switch. my file server may move to it, but this really kills my development box.
Sun doesn’t use vmware because they use a hardware solution called SunPCI, which you install in a SPARC machine and that allows you to use Windows and Solaris and the only shared component is the display:
http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/sunpci/
http://www.nvidia.com/object/solaris_display_1.0-7664.html
According to the page it contains x86 and x64 packages. I
only know the x86 ones work as I have run my PC in 32 bit mode
due to a dependency I have on a 32bit only kernel module.
They are only for quadro cards officially but I got it running
fine on my 6600GT by adding the appropriate driver alias.
There was a thread on this on OSnews:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10735
>> You can run the same OSS on Solaris and you can get real
>> Nvidia drivers as well now. Whats your point?
> Where’re the x86_64 ones?
You can find them linked off of the UNIX driver page
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
or more specifically,
http://www.nvidia.com/object/solaris_display_1.0-7664.html
No bash here. Maybe I just don’t understand.
With the GPL, I can use the code any way I want, as long as I opensource whatever I create with the code. With Solaris, I can’t do that.
Unlike GPL code, Solaris is a one-way street: I can donate code to Sun; but Sun doesn’t allow me to use their code in my projects.
Considering this vast difference in licensing, I can’t see developers ethusiastically supporting Open Solaris, the way the F/OSS community supports Linux or FreeBSD.
If I were a developer, what do I get out of supporting Sun? The thrill of helping McNeally or Shwartz make more money?
Maybe I’m completely wrong in my outlook.
yes i’m aware of this, but i would be running solaris on an x86 cpu not a sparc. sparcs dont have enough advantage for me given their additional cost
Please, please read the licensing FAQ.(link posted in earlier
reply). What you have posted is FUD.
You can use Suns code however you like as long as you release
your modifications to CDDL license files (it’s file based)
as source when you distribute the project. You don’t have to
release your own files (i.e. new files which were not
originally under CDDL) if you don’t want to. You CAN use Suns
code in your own projects as long as the license you choose
to distribute it under is compatible with the CDDL.
Maybe I’m completely wrong in my outlook.
Yes you are.
@Anonymous (IP: —.home.cgocable.net)
The code can’t be directly incorperated, but the technology can be studied and then a rewritten implimentation can be made and released under the GPL.
Not really. There are patents involved and it’s very hard to
‘study’ something and re-implement it without infringing
copyright.
Am I to take it then Sun is planning on suing OSS projects if they reimpliment Sun technology? And if so, does that mean F/OSS, and small developers, or just coporations like IBM?
You can reuse/reimplement Suns code and patents as long as
you release it as a derivative work under the CDDL. Read the
FAQ.
Taking Open Solaris and effectively copying it is still patent
and/or copyright infringement.
OpenSolaris does not exist.
Does not exist… Whatever.
The site has been updated with download links.
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/
🙂
Told you so….
Thanks to everyone in the community who did help this happen.
OpenSolaris finally exists.
Now let’s just see how much of it exists. The tarball is barely larger than the Linux kernel. I suspect much missing functionality and total inability to boot.
But at least it isn’t a complete phantom now.
Damn, that’s too bad it has to be that way, way as in Sun’s way or the highway. Hopefully if Sun sues, IBM and company can negotiate a cross-license deal to allow the GPL community to share with Sun’s CDDL community.
(How sickening is this, Community against community? Especially two that have so much in common.)
“If you choose to build from source, you will need: If you choose to install from pre-built archives, you will need:
A system installed with a suitable OpenSolaris distribution, which at this time is limited to Solaris Express: Community Release, Build 16 or newer.
If you choose to install from pre-built archives, you will need:
A system installed with a suitable OpenSolaris distribution, which at this time is limited to Solaris Express: Community Release, Build 16 or newer.”
uhhhh… so how much of an OS does this release actually include if you need to have Solaris Express already installed?
Come join us: http://www.opensolaris.org
Got the source. See the site in a few months when the next release is out. It’s strictly for interest’s sake, mind you.
Good to see that Sun is finally living up to at least one promise.
I don’t understand what you expected and why you’re setting
this up as Sun against the ‘community’. Not everybody uses the
GPL or thinks it’s the most appropriate license. There are
many open source licenses. As I said in an earlier post,
Sun chose a license it felt was best for it’s own (and it’s
shareholders needs). This wasn’t just an exercise to put a
tick in the box next to open source for comparing against a
linux distribution.
If you wan’t to use Suns code and patents use the CDDL. If you
wanted to lift code straight into linux (kernel) then you are out of
luck because the gpl does not permit this.
It’s not community against community and I think it’s very
disingenious of you to say so.
CDDL is a CDDL only community. Once you use CDDL software you are stuck. If you take methods and concepts from patent protected CDDL software to use in non-CDDl software you can be sued by SUN. Sun’s engineer’s might not like it but that is the license SUN’s management wrote. If you incorporate CDDL code in your project, you only have to give back the files of CDDl project, thus undermining the entire CONCEPT of OPEN SOURCE. One Open’s the Source code to all, not to the select changes you made for your Closed app. An App which is then able to be targeted by Sun’s Patent lawyers.
Sure the GPL is viral but if your using Source code from an Open Source project but don’t really care about Open Source you don’t have a right to complain. To a point the CDDL s under the same branch only now Sun can threaten you with a patent lawsuit for misuing CDDL code.
IBM, Nokia, and several others though don’t care what license you use as long as it is approved by the OSI.(which the CDDL is) So it’s prefectly acceptable to use IBM’s patents under Solaris but not use Sun’s Solaris Patents under Linux or the BSD’s.
Now where is that catch 22 by Sun again. You can only use Sun Stuff for Solaris only. That means project Looking Glass can’t be used on Solaris anymore.
There’s plenty of reasons not to use Solaris, like you just don’t prefer it. There are plenty of reasons to use it, such as when you do prefer it.
Gee, thanks for clarifying that for us Tony.
freenode IRC network
#opensolaris
CDDL is a CDDL only community.
So is GPL
If you take methods and concepts from patent protected CDDL software to use in non-CDDl software you can be sued by SUN
This is to encourage contributions back into OpenSolaris under
the CDDL. If you don’t like it don’t use it. It’s no different
from the current situation. Use the CDDL and this problem does
not exist. Whats your point? You have the code released under an OSI approved license. You will only be ‘targeted’ by Suns
patent lawyers if you violate Suns patents. If you use the
CDDL this will not be the case.
The CDDL gives ISV’s the option of keeping their own additions to CDDL distributions proprietary if they wish to
do so (they don’t HAVE to). If they modify a CDDL file then
they MUST release it under the terms of the license.
“CDDL is a CDDL only community.
>>> So is GPL ”
Unlike CDDL which is a license which only Sun uses, GPL is *the* most popular open source license. Read
http://dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html
opensolaris is a single vendor thing. You guys already have a problem generating community development around openoffice.org with the give me all your copyrights thing. I dont think it has been yet clarified whether Sun’s patents with solaris are available for use by redistributions.
Good luck anyway.
“CDDL is a CDDL only community.
>>> So is GPL ”
Unlike CDDL which is a license which only Sun uses, GPL is *the* most popular open source license. Read
http://dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html
opensolaris is a single vendor thing. You guys already have a problem generating community development around openoffice.org with the give me all your copyrights thing. I dont think it has been yet clarified whether Sun’s patents with solaris are available for use by redistributions.
Good luck anyway.
here comes more quality code
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-101749-1
Disingenuous? I’m confused, are you saying I’m insincere? Jeez, I really hope I’m not coming off that way. But here is the thread as it concerns us:
By Galbotrix (IP: 203.212.212.—)
Well….Open Solaris ships under CDDL whereas Linux is under the GPL. And as both licences are not supposed to work with each other many of the open solaris tools like dtrace cannot be legally ported to linux.
By Anonymous (IP: —.home.cgocable.net)
The code can’t be directly incorperated, but the technology can be studied and then a rewritten implimentation can be made and released under the GPL.
By Jon Anderson (IP: —.eu.sun.com)
Not really. There are patents involved and it’s very hard to ‘study’ something and re-implement it without infringing
copyright.
By Anonymous (IP: —.home.cgocable.net)
Am I to take it then Sun is planning on suing OSS projects if they reimpliment Sun technology? And if so, does that mean F/OSS, and small developers, or just coporations like IBM?
By Jon Anderson (IP: —.eu.sun.com)
You can reuse/reimplement Suns code and patents as long as you release it as a derivative work under the CDDL. Read the FAQ.
Taking Open Solaris and effectively copying it is still patent and/or copyright infringement.
By Anonymous (IP: —.home.cgocable.net)
Damn, that’s too bad it has to be that way, way as in Sun’s way or the highway. Hopefully if Sun sues, IBM and company can negotiate a cross-license deal to allow the GPL community to share with Sun’s CDDL community.
(How sickening is this, Community against community? Especially two that have so much in common.)
By Jon Anderson (IP: —.eu.sun.com)
I don’t understand what you expected and why you’re setting this up as Sun against the ‘community’. Not everybody uses the GPL or thinks it’s the most appropriate license. There are many open source licenses. As I said in an earlier post, Sun chose a license it felt was best for it’s own (and it’s shareholders needs). This wasn’t just an exercise to put a tick in the box next to open source for comparing against a linux distribution.
If you wan’t to use Suns code and patents use the CDDL. If you wanted to lift code straight into linux (kernel) then you are out of luck because the gpl does not permit this.
It’s not community against community and I think it’s very disingenious of you to say so.
When I asked if Sun plans to sue small developers, etc, from your IP address I was assuming you might have some inside knowledge of Sun’s management mindset as far as reimplimentation of Solaris features in Linux. I asked if Sun planned to sue, your answer said in effect yes. So I took that as Sun wants to prevent the GPL community from using Sun’s patented and copyrighted work. Since the CDDL community is Sun, and if Sun attacks the GPL community, those that have pledged support to protect the GPL community decide they are going to against Sun, I would think it is safe to say that is community against community or more accurately Sun against the GPL community.
I also never said anything about Sun using the GPL. That has been hashed over more times than I care to think about. Notice what I said was to study then reimpliment the technology, and not directly use the code, so copyright infringment shouldn’t be a problem. It’s those patents, and it would be a shame if Sun decided to use them to try and block the GPL community from using reimplimented or similar technology. But that’s your guy’s progative, I suppose.
Simply — Yippie!
The whole point of open source is th at we don’t have to reimplement the wheel 1,000 times a day in the software industry, this is great news if you have a solaris based project…as for me I’ll stick with linux, it hasn’t steered me wrong yet
Firstly, I have no insight into what Sun plan from a legal perspective.
Thanks for the long post, I better understand what you are
saying now. I can only say that the patent grants come
with the CDDL. If you implement a mechanism covered by a Sun
patent in a non-CDDL work then you are in patent infringement, same as always.
If you want to use Suns code and patents you should adhere
to the terms and conditions of the license.
I think if you re-implement the technology you would:
A) Still be liable for any patent infringement.
B) Be encumbered by having ‘studied’ the source. You could
probably get away with a clean room implementation.
I think the likelihood of Sun going round suing people left,
right and centre is pretty low being realistic.
It’s a bit unfair to say that CDDL is preventing GPL
developers from taking Solaris source and incorporating it
into their work as the incompatibility exists in the GPL not the CDDL.
Does this mean there cannot and will not be any GPL’d software in Opensolaris ? So in essence Opensolaris couldnt make there own version of gnome or kde ?
“t’s a bit unfair to say that CDDL is preventing GPL
developers from taking Solaris source and incorporating it
into their work as the incompatibility exists in the GPL not the CDDL. ”
GPL exists long before CDDL license was created by Sun. They are practically the only people who use the license. You guys very well know there was a compatibility issue with GPL when you created it. It was publicly announced when you made the license available for review for OSI. So its very well fair to say the the compatibility issue was created by Sun in the CDDL.
Now whether you did have your reasons to do it is a entirely different matter.
hang on yes there is!
have a look for yourself!
http://www.opensolaris.org/
Not everything that is “open source” is automatically GPL!
Sun says they are “open sourcing” solaris, and they did. Those that complain of the CDDL not being compatible with GPL should realize GPL is not compatible with other licenses.
Get over it. Whether to GPL or not is the decision of the code owner. You should respect the decision of the code owner to release their code (costing millions to develop) and be appreciative that it is there to view, should you desire to do so. If you don’t then what have you lost?
@Snake
Does this mean there cannot and will not be any GPL’d software in Opensolaris ? So in essence Opensolaris couldnt make there own version of gnome or kde ?
As far as I can understand, nothing stops using GPL code in Solaris userland. Solaris is not derivative work of Gnome/KDE/whatever similar package and is not covered with GPL.
@Jon Anderson
It’s a bit unfair to say that CDDL is preventing GPL
developers from taking Solaris source and incorporating it
into their work as the incompatibility exists in the GPL not the CDDL.
No-no, IMHO incompatibility exists between these licenses, not in one of these. This incompatibilty is philosophical and cannot be avoided. Your CDDL is in some sense very similar to GPL – all work, covered by either licence, cannot be relicensed without consensus of all co-authors (co-owners). BSD style licenses are quite different from this.
Well, the philosophical side: CDDL is meant to protect Sun ownership, GPL is meant to exclude any ownership at all – these things are not compatible. Other aspects (like openness of source code in both cases) do not matter here.
Even if GPL wouldn’t be “self-expanding”, but related to single files, it would be almost impossible to create joint product from such differently licensed files.
word so stop trolling and either start reviewing,building or get a hike.
So has anyone gone through the process of installing Solaris Express and downloading and installing the OpenSolaris binaries yet?
Does OpenSolaris come with JDS, Mozilla, Evolution (with the MS Exchange plug-in) and the other goodies that come with Solaris 10 GA or is it just the kernel?
I really dont understand the CDDL or actually I havent heard what has to say, The GPL I know and basicly if you release the a product under the GPL (becuase you can have a propiratary product realeased on a GPL System like Linux) then all you have to do is make the source available, if someone creates somthing out of that code that you released then they must also realease under the GPL, it makes sense, so I cant see how people are going to bash that, now I personaly like the BSD License even though I’m a Linux user, from my understanding the BSD license says you can take anycode, modify any code and incorporate any code, but u you to give credit to the developer of that code.
Am I wrong? could somone please correct me.
So your saying Sun could incorporate all GPL stuff and not have to give back (aslong as they dont modify) but Linux couldnt do the same ?
This is a joke.
Without an iso, there is no OpenSolaris.
It seems you have to have solaris to get opensolaris, too bad, i was willing to give it a try, do you think that it will be available in the future?
What’s bothering me is not that the CDDL and GPL are not compatible, but the “We will sue anyone using ideas from our *opensourced* code, not using *our* license”.
From this patent point of view, I think it’s immoral at best…
I can see a big patent-infringement bait floating in this.
IANAL, but for the moment (and I hope it will still be true for a long time) the patent clause does not affect Europe; so one could reimplement ideas from CDDL code into another license (GPL included).
I am not sure what you mean. OpenSolaris provides the core Operating System and Network code. We have not “yet” opened up the install code base. So..yes you need to download Solaris 10 (which is free!!) and then layer the bits from Opensolaris.
I’ve never used Solaris 10, but I’ve read great things about it. It appears to be a very powerful, efficient, scalable, full featured big iron oriented OS. Kudos to Sun for their great engineering effort.
As a Linux user, I might try out Solaris 10 someday (once it appears the needed hardware support is there), because I like great technology. And Solaris seems to be great technology.
Also, I have nothing against Sun (other than the agreement with MS, which I don’t trust). They have produced great technology (in fact given a lot of it away), and they have helped open source in some cases. McNealy and Schwartz are blabbermouthed morons, but that doesn’t detract from Sun’s technological achievements. As a good technology company, I wish Sun the best of success.
Also, I don’t have any worries about mixing GPL code with CDDL code. I think many open source licenses are valid, and have their advantages and disadvantages.
Personally, if I’m going to work on an open source project, I would prefer the GPL. The GPL is share and share alike. You take whatever you like, change it, redistribute it, even sell it. The only requirement is that you make your changes GPL as well, giving back to the community (from whom you already received). Even though stuff is “free” (as in speech and/or beer), there is still commerce going on. Only the commerce is an exchange of ideas (software), in a barter like system.
The way I understand CDDL, is that any development you do with the OpenSolaris code, you can’t take it and redistribute it, or sell it, or make your own derivate project. It all has to go back to the original patent/IP holder – Sun. Thus, if someone does free development work on OpenSolaris, they get nothing in return (other than thinking it was interesting), and Sun gets everything. Thus, it’s a one way street. Under this scenario, I seriously doubt that Sun will generate much of community around CDDL and OpenSolaris.
Afterall, who wants to be a volunteer slave for a large corporation? People are willing to do free coding for other open source projects because they get something in return (ownership of their own derivative work, using other people’s work, etc).
Again, I have nothing against Sun – I wish them the best. And it’s their right to release their code in whatever license suits them. But I really see CDDL’s one way street being a huge inhibitor to OpenSolaris’ success.
Woah, holy flamewars, Batman.
I don’t see what the big deal is. The CDDL seems to be a more liberal license (liberty for developers that is), than the GPL.
Take this scenario for example:
I have my own project of which I am the owner and have coded all of it myself. It’s 100,000 lines long. Let’s say I want to incorporate 500 lines of Open Source code into it, let’s see what happens with different licenses:
If it’s BSD licensed, I can just take the code and stick it into my project, and I keep the copyright comments in there about its authors, but can otherwise do whatever I want with it, and not release anything back if I don’t want to.
If it’s CDDL licensed, I can take the 500 lines of code and incorporate it into my project. I don’t have to release my 100,000 lines of existing code, but I DO have to release the files that contain the CDDL code back, but not my whole app. This seems very reasonable.
If it’s GPL licensed, I can take the 500 lines of code and incorporate into my project. I will then have to release all 100,000 lines of my own code back under the GPL license. This is an unreasonable demand in this scenario in my opinion (thus I would not use the GPL code if it asks so much of me).
It seems the CDDL achieves a good balance between a BSD and a GPL license.
As for the patent issue, I see no difference between that and regular patents.
Sure, if you code something that SUN has a patent on, they can sue you.
So? That’s how everything works. If you code something that MS has a patent on, they can sue you. If you code something that IBM has a patent on, they can sue you. One thing to note is they _can_ sue, but not necessarily that they _will_ sue you.
The only difference with CDDL is that SUN will not sue you if you license the code under CDDL that uses their patents. Which is _better_ than no such clause at all from other companies, which can just sue at will – at least here you can prevent yourself from being sued, whereas with other companies you’re out of luck.
so what your saying is, you want to take HOWEVER SMALL code from opensource use it in your project and not give any of your code back ??
Apart from GPL, both CDDL and BSD let you do this, so tell what will the programmer who opensourced his code under *Licence get out of it ? may the reason a lot of stuff GPL’d is becuase the developer expects the community to give stuff back ??
so in your case you just want to help your self ?? now what part of that is OPEN ??
> Apart from GPL, both CDDL and BSD let you do this, so tell what will the programmer who opensourced his code under *Licence get out of it ? may the reason a lot of stuff GPL’d is becuase the developer expects the community to give stuff back ?? so in your case you just want to help your self ?? now what part of that is OPEN ??
Obviosly you have pretty twisted draconian definition of OPEN where you’re forced to donate back. Let me spell this out for you. Open means freedom and CDDL gives me more freedom to choose wether I want to keep my code to myself or donate it to the open source. GPL on the other hand significantly limits my freedom to do so, therefore CDDL is *more* OPEN than GPL.
All excellent points.
And I retract my “One way street” charactarization of the CDDL.
I read the FAQ about the CDDL on the OpenSolaris website and it does seem to allow for redistribution, so long as the file that contains the original copied CDDL code is also released under the CDDL, without Sun “owning” the redistribution. The rest of the project can remain the author’s own, under whatever license he/she prefers.
For proprietary developers, or developers who want to keep their project more closely guarded, the GPL is “viral” in a sense. It does require the whole kit and kaboodle to be GPL’d. But this whole scenario has it’s good side in that it has rapidly increased the amount of shared code out there, and has caused open source code to improve rapidly. The BSD license, and to a lesser extent the CDDL, don’t promote this rapid expansion/sharing of code/ideas.
Also, the BSD license and the CDDL tend to be more developer friendly, and the GPL tends to be more user friendly.
At least on what I’ve learned from the CDDL FAQ, it seems that it could be the most friendly for license cross-polination.
The one criticism I have for Sun though is that they do an extremely crappy job of getting their messages across. This is probably due to Scot McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz saying stupid stuff and constantly attacking Red Hat. Thus, unfortunately, even though Sun often has the best of intentions, and even does a lot good, and puts out great technology, they end up getting unjustly criticized, particularily by many in the open source community.
They are only for quadro cards officially but I got it running
fine on my 6600GT by adding the appropriate driver alias.
That’s all i needed 🙂
ok i see your point, your view of open is correct, but that still doesnt clear the fact developers who want to use source code which is in the open but dont want to give back. Your right to not give back your code is fine, but then dont use open source code, i know your gona say the BSD/CDDL license allows you to do that, but what i am saying is the whole point of Opensource is not only freedom to developers but also freedom for the comunity.
For example if everyone started using OSS code and never gave back then what code would there be to take ?
ps. and calling my views draconian just because i dont think the way you do is a bit twisted wouldnt you say after all if everyone thought the way hitler did we wouldnt be here debating.
Onl parts of Solaris have been open source and you have to reassign all copyrights of your work to Sun. Anyone who does this will be becoming a free corporate tool.
That’s fine, but I won’t be doing free work for Sun.
If you are going to point to things in the contributor agreement, it is only civil to make sure that you do so in context.
The paragraph in question is: (from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/sun_contributor_agreement/ )
Following the lead of other open source projects, the OpenSolaris project requires contributors to jointly assign their copyright on contributed code. The Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) gives Sun and the contributor joint copyright interests in the code: the contributor retains copyrights while also granting those rights to Sun as the open source project sponsor.
Before flaming the contributor agreement ( from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/sun_contributor_agreement/sun_c… ), it would probably pay folks to read it in it’s entireity first. There are good reasons for assigning joint copyright.
Ahh that’s the other thing, the author retains their copyright, they don’t give it away, the are assigning joint copyright.
Joint copyright is only one of the things covered by the agreement. Other parts are to guarantee things like, you actually state that you have the right to grant the IP under the CDDL and that you acknowledge the provisions of the CDDL.
YMMV IANAL.
Alan.
I am not sure I am in the right place.
http://www.turbocash.co.za
We are Open Source Accounting Software developers. Currently we are locked into Delphi and Windows.
We would really like to break free of Windows, but this is a really a difficult thing to do both from a technical development point of view and a client side target. It seems all the Real business users are Windows users.
We have looked at Linux over the wall for a while now and seem no closer to being able to port our Code.
Is Open Solaris going to help us to freedom?
From some of the comments that I see here, some of you are a little naive about the Open Source opportunity. You will get over this as you get used to it. A word of advice – stop bitching amongst each other an concerntrate efforts on the real competitor – Microsoft.