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:2005-07-08
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:2006-08-26
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:
Note that a lot of Linux *kernel* code indeed has the v2 or later option which implies that many people would have no problem with their code being used in OpenSolaris under v3.
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.
There are the four software freedoms, and indeed, the v3 does not match v2 here: v2 falls short now in what it used to protect. So you must mean other freedoms and how v3 is deficient enough so as to outweigh the protection lost by v2.
Can you explain the deficiency? Moreover, how does v2 cater more to users than does v3?
Member since:2005-07-06
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:2005-11-23
Well I take a look at the comparison chart:
http://sourceware.org/systemtap/wiki/SystemtapDtraceComparison
They are saying that the target audience of Dtrace is not Developpers (!), that you can not use Dtrace for debugging (!).
Funnier, that the ongoing evolution of Dtrace is slow but their is fast that the number of probe is limited (!) on Dtrace but not on SystemTap.
Well, another unbiased, FUD free, linux project ....
Member since:2006-01-17
"Linux has system tap, which is more or less a clone of (and otherwise inspired by) DTrace."
a clone that is unstable, harder to write scripts for, and lack the main features that users need to make use of it. If you monitor there mailing list you will see that new bug reports are added daily usually involving a system crashes.
Systemtap does not have userland probes yet, they have been promising them for 2 years now, but still no userland probes, you can't even get a userland stacktrace currently.
Turns out that systemtap developers love devoping simple low level features that just add to bloat, and help only kernel coders, they are dragging their feet on the userland probes.
While Systemtap is generating bug reports, DTrace is generating bug fixes and statistics about running systems.
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