Submitted by Bruno Souza, the NetBeans Community Manager for Sun, wrote: “As you all know, we are working hard for the release of NetBeans 6.0. The new release will bring exciting technical features and this is a great time to consider what else can we do to empower the NetBeans Community. As a result of requests from the comunity, we are considering the potential adoption of a new license model. We are considering releasing a future early access version of NetBeans 6.0 under a dual licensing scheme of CDDL and GPL v2 with Classpath exception. A move like this would be well received by many of the NetBeans contributors, and will benefit the community at large.”
So _we’ll_ get their zfs and _they’ll_ get our drivers …
I don’t quite get why this post above was modded down. Perhaps I take the stuff he said too lightly, but I for one would like to see Linux And OpenSolaris kernels being able to share more code for the benefit of both projects.
Is there anything specially hideous about this idea that I haven’t seen ?
Although going by the “rules” he has done nothing wrong the comment displays a distinct lack of technical knowledge and a slight degree of GPL zealotry. Not to mention that this story is about Netbeans and not OpenSolaris.
OpenSolaris could not simply *use* Linux drivers as they are fundamentally different, i’m sure there is some good info that could be gleaned from the Linux drivers but I doubt it would be worth going GPL and losing the benfits inherent in CDDL?
The CDDL is a great open source license that serves the needs and wants of the OpenSolaris community just fine, the community may decide to go GPL3 based upon it’s merits but going to GPL2 would be a step backward in many eyes, including mine.
A constructive approach often benefits all, rolling around on the floor screaming “I want GPL” is not going to help anyone.
“”
OpenSolaris could not simply *use* Linux drivers as they are fundamentally different
“”
Maybe not *simply*, but it really would not be that much work. The glue layer between raw hardware manipulation and the OS would have to be reworked, but the most difficult part would be done. See how nVidia and ATI drivers for Windows and Linux share most of the code, and those two operating systems are vastly more different than Linux and Solaris. There’s even a wrapper layer that allows straight Windows network drivers to be used in Linux!
And most of the higher level code that would be different between Solaris and Linux would be very similar for Solaris drivers of the same family (say all network cards, or scsi cards, or sound hardware or whatever).
I think both Solaris and Linux would technically benefit from the code sharing that the GPL would permit. As for market penetration, though, I’m not sure about who would benefit the most in the long term. It could well be that Solaris was stripped of its advantages and then dumped as an equally competent but less mainstream OS, or it could also happen that it turned into a much more formidable opponent to Linux and Windows.
OT: If only you had said, “There’s even a wrapper layer that allows straight Windows D3D drivers to be used in a native Linux D3D layer, as well as through Wine!”
Maybe one day. 🙂 Sorry to be OT.
I think it is more telling that his comment was modded down to -4 at one point and is now at +4. It isn’t about being on topic or insightful, its about promoting the GPL zealot point of view and the people who support it.
So much for being on topic and relevant.
And as always a comment that the GPL/Linux/anti-Sun zealots don’t like gets modded down, at one point my comment was at +3. Nothing like making my point for me that it is more important to reward a viewpoint than factual or insightful comments. Thanks!
I must agree, this is really getting funny. I guess it takes the new maximum (do we have any these days) score to really appreciate how skewed are mods in OS news lately… I never thought we had such a big problem before.
And short of a labor intensive meta-moderation (ala Slashdot) I really don’t see a solution because posters policing themselves obviously doesn’t work at all.
— deleted —
Edited 2007-08-22 07:50
>>Although going by the “rules” he has done nothing wrong the comment displays a distinct lack of technical knowledge and a slight degree of GPL zealotry. Not to mention that this story is about Netbeans and not OpenSolaris.
The above is rude and a bunch of crap and so I ignore it.
>> OpenSolaris could not simply *use* Linux drivers as they are fundamentally different, i’m sure there is
That’s not what I said. You have to read more carefully, man. And it should be possible to read _one_ sentence carefully, don’t you think
>> some good info that could be gleaned from the Linux drivers but I doubt it would be worth going GPL and losing the benfits inherent in CDDL?
That’s what SUN is discussing internally for months now. For crying out loud, please try to stick to the facts!
>> The CDDL is a great open source license that serves the needs and wants of the OpenSolaris community just fine, the community may decide to go GPL3 based upon it’s merits but going to GPL2 would be a step backward in many eyes, including mine.
That’s SUN marketing, doesn’t belong here. Apparently Jonathan Schwartz does not quite agree with you, as he (and others at SUN) have been discussing the GPL 3 for months now.
>> A constructive approach often benefits all, rolling around on the floor screaming “I want GPL” is not going to help anyone.
I think SUN is very constructive. Don’t underestimate SUN. They have used the GPL 2 for Java, and it’s quite possible that they are using GPL 3 for OpenSolaris.
Edited 2007-08-22 07:54
Great news. The more that Sun facilitates code-sharing, the more that they impress me and make me believe that they have really turned a new leaf.
The reality is that the GPL is firmly established. While I think it’s a fine license, I am not going into a debate over its merits. But as a very common license, the more code that is compatible with GPLed license code, the more that the entire FLOSS universe benefits and that can and should include SUN too.
I am more inclined to take now SUN more seriously and to begin recommending them again, because despite many of their f–kups in the past, they seem to be taking genuine and positive steps to not just speak about openness, but to be really open.
When I finally see the Java runtime included in Debian by default, I’ll know that they have fully delivered on that promise.
And if they ever dual-license Solaris, I will go ahead and try it again. I tried Solaris 8 on a range of hardware a few years ago and it didn’t like my hardware, but I am willing to revisit the past.
Edited 2007-08-20 23:51
Pardon? you’re judging an operating system based on an experience over 10 years ago? mate, things have changed alot in 10 years! believe me, the Solaris of today is a world apart from Solaris 8.
Regarding licencing; the issue isn’t so much the fact is GPL is better, but the fact that the GPL is more well known – and personally, I prefer the CDDL given that it is a file based licence rather than a ‘all or nothing’ approach which GPL takes.
As for Netbeans, hopefully if they do make it dual licenced, it should also provide a good framework for vendors to base their applications on – which is what *NIX over all needs; a great framework to make application vendors life easier.
Although I’m a BSD guy myself, I’m so with you on that one.
Solaris 8 is what most serious SUN shops were running up to three and half years ago, so I am not talking about a experience that I had 10 years ago.
Additionally, for a long while, Solaris 8 was the only x86 version available and was what I could test on my hardware.
I said I wasn’t going to go into a debate over licensing, but to think of licensing exclusively in file-based terms is fairly simple-minded. Hell, git, the SCM, doesn’t even track files at the disk level and most, software, isn’t structured strictly around files, but around libraries, classes. Of course, these things are finally saved as “files” on disk, but that is oftentimes besides the point. In designing complete and complex systems, think of storage subsystems or even the usb interface of any kernel, there is a great deal of interaction between the layers and I think the GPL is much more sensible about recognizing this.
The CDDL was Sun’s attempt to create its own sandbox. When they realized that they had more to lose than to gain by creating their own discreet, self-contained universe,they began to talk about dual licenses or straight GPL. Could it be that, maybe, the folks leading SUN have given some serious thought about how to build self-sustaining communities?
Reasonable people can have differences, but I often think that these must be cast aside for the greater good of the people and projects involved. So with that in mind, what exactly is gained from license incompatibilities?
That is unsupported, and unproven speculation. Unless you have facts to support your statement, I would request you redact it.
You act as if it was chosen specifically because it was incompatible to begin with, which is not true. The license was chosen for many reasons that are far less petty than what you imply.
So, the article is about Sun proposing the dual licensing of Netbeans with CDDL and GPL.
So what do posters talk about? Solaris.
Back on topic. 😉
I think this is outstanding news. IMHO, NetBeans is the best all around (free) IDE out there. It’s not only awesome as a Java IDE (Java SE, Swing, Matisse, JEE, Web apps, JSF, EJB, etc), it’s large array of plugins makes it great for C/C++, Ruby, Python, Groovy, Javascript, Ajax, UML, SOA, and the list goes on. In fact, Netbeans’ array of excellent plugins is starting to rival that of Eclipse.
And while I’m on the subject of Eclipse – I like Eclipse. It’s an awesome tools/plugins/RCP flatform.
However, I have found that everything I try to do in both NetBeans or Eclipse, whether that’s GUI, web, JEE, scripting, whatever, Netbeans is better, easier, faster, more productive, and more fun, in every case.
I’m not trying to knock Eclipse – I think it’s great. I just think NetBeans is superior. Eclipse was ahead of the game and thus has the larger, more vibrant ecosystem. However, NetBeans is rapidly catching up in the ecosystem, and has truly leap-frogged, in terms of features, usability, and productivity, past Eclipse.
And NetBeans having a GPL license will only accelerate adoption. It will also encourage Linux distros to package it in their repos.
Great stuff.
Netbeans is great no doubt. But if you are talking about a free and powerful IDE right out of the box you have to also include JDeveloper from Oracle into the mix. Give the 11g Tech Preview a shot and prepare to be dazzled. Their 10g release 3 of the IDE that is in production right now is awesome as well. Netbeans still is cooler in that it has the profiler now with the IDE and that is just one of the most awesome tools ever!
Right now I think no matter what anyone says the IDE wars have hotted up. Eclipse as a platform may be great but as an IDE it needs to be something like MyEclipse or the upcoming Red Hat Developer Studio with code donated from Exadel.
I’m not sure I’m seeing the benefit of dual-licensing, or why people think it will somehow solve problems that may or may not exist.
To me it seems that you choose one or the other based on your requirements, they are functionally different enough to be incompatible together.
If Sun’s intent is to build a community around their products, I can’t see where they’ll be able to do it when the upstream project requires dual-licensing of all contributions. In other words, if you want to contribute work to Java, NetBeans, openSolaris, whatever, you’d have to agree to GPL/CDDL licensing. Maybe I’m overly cynical, but I can’t envision GPL and CDDL developers agreeing to dual-licensing since the licenses are basically opposed. Of course this is a generalization, but I can’t help suspecting that GPL developers are much more rigid about their choice of license than the CDDL developers, and that the rigidity of the GPL is a turn-off for developers turning to the CDDL. Sure, some people simply won’t care and will happily contribute under both licenses, but I’m going under the once again cynical assumption that they’ll be in the minority among their respective developer communities.
So if one group takes an open Sun product and applies CDDL-only improvements, there’s no gain for the GPL community, or Sun. If another group takes an open Sun product and applies GPL-only improvements, there’s no gain for the CDDL community, or Sun. This also basically mitigates the “Sun wants our drivers!” argument from the linux community, since Sun wouldn’t be able to use them anyways. In the end we wind up with different and incompatible flavors of the same product, which I thought was one of Sun’s claimed reasons against opening Java originally.
I’ve always applauded Sun’s moves to embrace OSS, but I’ve also questioned their motives. When you look at major GPL projects like the linux kernel or GNU, you can see how the collaborative process works with community contributions under a unified license. And while I’m not that familiar with the openSolaris communtiy, I have to assume that many of those distros are leveraging CDDL contributions for the betterment of the product, even the ones that are using GNU userlands.
Philosophies aside, am I missing something? I really don’t want to bog this down in more licensing dogma, but I’m more interested in the business aspect, where is Sun really going here and is it a viable plan? Really, I’m curious more than anything else, because otherwise I can’t help thinking that this is still marketing and PR more than anything else. It seems to me that this is more of a one-way effort to ensure that Sun-originated products are more dispersed within the OSS community, even at the risk of forking, than it is to build a dynamic shared development community. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, the communities will still benefit, but I just don’t think that’s an actual embrace of the FLOSS development model.
Interested in opinions, not flames or tubthumping…
“Philosophies aside, am I missing something?”
The main thing is that the GPL is the most popular and widespread open source license out there. The GPL also has a huge ecosystem around it.
So licensing something under the GPL will give it instant compatibility and cross pollination with the huge GPL ecosystem.
Also, licensing under the GPL gives instant licensing compatibility with all Linux distros, which will encourage uptake of the product on those Linux distros.
Finally, licensing under the GPL is good for a corporation like Sun. It ensures that a competitor can’t just take the code, fork it, and not give back, and use the forked version as a competitive weapon against the original company.
That’s why IBM whined about Sun releasing Java as GPL, rather than the Apache license. IBM wanted to (and continues to want to) wrest control of Java away from Sun, to IBM’s own advantage.
Anyway, this is not to give props to or criticize anyone license. BSD, APL, EPL, MPL, GPL, and others, are all good open source licenses with various strengths and weaknesses. And I’m not so concerned about philosophy here.
What matters is that the GPL has widespread adoption, and a huge ecosystem. It can only help the spread of NetBeans to jump into that ecosystem.
And I would genuinely like to see the greater adoption of NetBeans. It’s one of the best IDE’s I’ve ever used (Including Visual Studio, Eclipse, KDevelop, Delphi, C++ Builder, JBuilder, Anjuta, Glade, QT Designer, Emacs, Geany, and others).
Do you know the reason why they wouldn’t go with GPLv3 in this case?
i think it got to do with the Classpath exception
Netbeans was an important part of my move from Winduhs to Linux. So stable on both platforms. Much nicer than eclipse. I’ve been doing C dev using good old vi, so I haven’t used it recently, but I’ll have to take a look at it again. Especially if plugins are available to make it as nice for C as it was for Java.