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You mean so that Linux distributions can plunder every good thing about Solaris and kill the existing Solaris community?

Yet you don't mind Apple and BSD "plundering" the good things from Solaris? How is it any different?

As an OpenSolaris contributor, I would stop contributing if they chose the GPLv2. The CDDL was a *main* reason why I joined the OpenSolaris project.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the way I read this is "I would stop contributing if those Linux bastards could use my stuff". Such an attitude goes completely against the sprit of the open source/free software movement and is, frankly, rather childish.

If you like OpenSolaris best and want to contribute to it, then that's great. But choosing to do so specifically so that another open source project can't use your code just doesn't seem right to me.

Yet you don't mind Apple and BSD "plundering" the good things from Solaris? How is it any different?

Except they're not "plundering" in my view. If the Solaris code was GPL'd, it would just be "absorbed" into the Linux world. Whereas with the Apple culture, it it *used* but not "absorbed", same with BSD.

If all the functionality of Solaris were moved into Linux, key reasons to use Solaris would not exist. Hence, why I am against it. One project should not succeed at the expense of another.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the way I read this is "I would stop contributing if those Linux bastards could use my stuff".

They can use OpenSolaris and whatever "stuff" I have contributed. Just not in a way that causes it to lose any identity and the licensing I want.

Edited 2007-01-17 01:51

Yet you don't mind Apple and BSD "plundering" the good things from Solaris? How is it any different?
It's different because they are not saying all the time that Solaris suck, that they are the best out there and that everybody not using their software are wrong.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the way I read this is "I would stop contributing if those Linux bastards could use my stuff".
Such an attitude goes completely against the sprit of the open source/free software movement and is, frankly, rather childish.

If I have to choose a licence for some free code I will choose a licence that will avoid the linux community to use my code.
I though I was the only one with this point of view, but I am happy to see it is not the case. You only have what you deserve with comments like yours: people are tired of the linux user zealotery.

Moreover, I think that it is more childish to see linux users saying that Solaris is a piece of crap since many years, and after that complain because they can not take code from Solaris ....

And no, it is not against open source, it is against linux users.
Linux is not OSS, they are part of it. But you show us what people dislike about linux users: they are nombrilist.

But choosing to do so specifically so that another open source project can't use your code just doesn't seem right to me.
Sound perfectly good to me.

>Yet you don't mind Apple and BSD "plundering" the good things from Solaris? How is it any different?

Solaris is just a BSD fork (look back at 1979)! Solaris is using OpenSSH too from OpenBSD .. so think about your words, there is some nonsense in it. Apple is "plundering" BSD but it supports BSD too. Solaris would be dead without projects like BSD and its really free license.

> "Such an attitude goes completely against the sprit of the open source/free software movement and is, frankly, rather childish."

and

> "But choosing to do so specifically so that another open source project can't use your code just doesn't seem right to me."

This is exactly what GPL do with the licenses that are "compatible" with it.

actually while i myself like gpl3, in the spirit of stopping misuse, i too might have preferred solaris as gpl2, so solaris could major-rip linux's drivers.

i think in the long run, ripping between solaris/linux would do most for solaris.

What's so bad about sharing code between Solaris and Linux? Wouldn't that make both systems better?

Sun has positioned OpenSolaris (under the GPLv3) so that it can plunder everything from the GNU/Linux userland (which mostly retains the "or later version" provision), yet the Linux kernel (which doesn't) can't plunder anything from OpenSolaris. Neither can OpenSolaris plunder from the Linux kernel, which contains lots of driver support unavailable under OpenSolaris, which doesn't seem like the best way to serve its userbase.

As a contributor to an open source project, I find it odd that you are opposed to sharing your code with other open source projects. That's why some people are sour on OpenSolaris and its licensing decisions. It wants to be an open source project, but it wants to make sure that its code doesn't benefit other open source projects. Some find this arrangement selfish (keep your hands off our code) and arrogant (we don't need your crappy code anyway).

Fine, set up your little wall and keep your precious community separate from the rest of the open source community. We've gotten this far by sharing. I'm confident that if we continue to share and share alike, the Linux community will continue to out-pace the growth of OpenSolaris.

Sweet system you've got over there, though, very impressed. You know, it might just be good enough so that you don't have to worry about your community disappearing overnight...

What's so bad about sharing code between Solaris and Linux? Wouldn't that make both systems better?


Sun has positioned OpenSolaris (under the GPLv3) so that it can plunder everything from the GNU/Linux userland (which mostly retains the "or later version" provision), yet the Linux kernel (which doesn't) can't plunder anything from OpenSolaris.

Sun doesn't need to plunder anything. It already has a functional userland. Whereas Linux lacks any equivalent filesystem to ZFS, any equivalent tracer to DTrace, etc.

Neither can OpenSolaris plunder from the Linux kernel, which contains lots of driver support unavailable under OpenSolaris, which doesn't seem like the best way to serve its userbase.

Lots of drivers that would be useless. If you spent any time developer drivers for Solaris and Linux, you would know they are worlds apart. There is little to be cross-used.


It wants to be an open source project, but it wants to make sure that its code doesn't benefit other open source projects.

That is a flat out lie. The OpenSolaris project wants to benefit the community. Part of those benefits is a license that is far friendlier to many individuals than the GPL. Even without the ability to directly incorporate the source code, the knowledge contained within can still be used.

As a contributor to an open source project, I find it odd that you are opposed to sharing your code with other open source projects.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I see all of the BSD projects that put out great code, and then can't use *any* of the improvements because of the GPL "absorption" that constantly happens. GPL + BSD = GPL project takes everything and gives nothing back in return. Whether or not the license allows it doesn't make it right in my eyes.

Edited 2007-01-17 01:49

As an OpenSolaris contributor, I would stop contributing if they chose the GPLv2. The CDDL was a *main* reason why I joined the OpenSolaris project.

It's a particularly rare breed of open source developer that doesn't want his code to be open source.

Yes, it's purposely recursive, just to confuse the likes of binarycrusader.

It's a particularly rare breed of open source developer that doesn't want his code to be open source.

Except I do, and the CDDL *is* an Open Source license, even the Free Software Foundation recognizes it as such. Try again.

It's a particularly rare breed of open source developer that doesn't want his code to be open source.


You people seem to fail to see the many aspects of why some people do things they do.

The many different licenses fit in with many different mind sets.

One way of thinking says "I want people to have good code to use, I don't really care if they tell anyone they used my code or let me know how they changed it just so long as the code they use is up to standards." -- these are people who care more about quality than fame, as long as things work and work well they are happy about it. You know, the guy that gives $5 to a homeless man when nobody can see it and never says a word about it for his entire life.

Then there are people who say "I don't care what you do with my code so long as you let people know I wrote it. I deserve credit for the work, after all." -- These are people who fall more toward "quality" than fame, but still like the ego boost of seeing their names out there. Same as above, but happen to let slip "Did you see that guy out there? I gave him a couple bucks, I hope he'll be alright."

Another way of thinking is to say "I don't mind if people use my code, but they sure as hell better tell everyone it was my code, and they sure as hell better give me any changes they made, because for some reason I am entitled to them!" -- These are, well, people with an inflated sense of self importance... sort of like people who go out on missionary work because they think it will buy them salvation from [insert god here] and not because they actually want to help people (who was it that said the root of every action is greed?).

There is another way of thinking that says "I write good code, and I am helping a project I feel is worthwhile, but I do not want someone else benefiting from my hard work. If I wanted them to have the code, I would have written it for them, however, if they want to look at my code to see *how* I did something so they can work it out on their own they are more than welcome." -- these are people who enjoy sharing knowledge but don't enjoy people thriving off of their hard work.

Then there are people who simply say "my work is mine, nobody else can use it, nobody can look at it, it's all mine HAHAHAHAHA!!!!" and under certain circumstances I understand that as well...

But they are all valid reasons for contributing to a project (except, of course, that last one), and just because you happen to be of one persuasion or another does not invalidate the others and does not mean a license designed with one type of person in mind is not "open source."

Open source just means you can look at it, it doesn't in any way mean you have to be allowed to actually use it.