Sun Microsystems is set to license OpenSolaris under the upcoming GNU GPLv3 in addition to the existing Common Development and Distribution License, sources close to the company have told eWEEK. "The next version of Solaris will include things like GNU Userland, which is already being attempted with OpenSolaris, while open-source solutions from other communities for things like package management also look very promising. Dual-licensing OpenSolaris with GPLv3 could make this even easier," said a source who declined to be named.
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Member since:2005-07-06
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
Member since:2005-07-08
Whereas Linux lacks any equivalent filesystem to ZFS, any equivalent tracer to DTrace, etc.
You're right, those are great features. The Linux kernel devs are working on their own COW filesystem that eliminates the very few downsides to ZFS (mainly write latency). They have at least one former ZFS coder working on it. I don't expect to see production code for at least 2-3 years, and Sun's SVR4-inspired VFS is nicer than Linux VFS. So, Solaris has Linux squarely beat on storage technology. It's a big problem for Linux right now.
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.
Right, but the most annoying parts of writing a device driver, including figuring out the hardware registers, could go a lot quicker if they could rip the tables out of the Linux driver. Or just use the Linux driver for reference (which I believe would fail the "clean room" test). Sort of like you said here:
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.
What parts of the CDDL and/or GPLv3 are friendlier than the GPLv2? Is it the explicit patent grant to the original author of the source file? Is it the more onerous distribution requirements? The prohibition of digital signatures? The permission to link to proprietary code? I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which is which.
I have banged my head against the wall trying to understand how the GPLv3 helps anyone but the FSF idealists, but at the end of the day, I actually prefer the CDDL, even despite the very weak file-based license propagation. But neither is any match for the GPLv2 in terms of the freedoms it grants to the recipient or the protection of free software within the bounds of copyright law.
The CDDL is a license that caters to developers, the GPLv3 caters to fascists, and the BSD caters to academics. The GPLv2 caters to users. There's many more of them, and that's why the GPLv2 has been so successful.
Member since:2006-10-24
Whereas Linux lacks any equivalent filesystem to ZFS, any equivalent tracer to DTrace, etc.
You're wrong here, at least in regard to DTrace. Linux has system tap, which is more or less a clone of (and otherwise inspired by) DTrace.
http://sourceware.org/systemtap/
Edited 2007-01-17 07:05
Member since:
2005-07-08
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...