Sun Microsystems is the latest company to become a patron of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF's corporate patron program allows companies to provide financial sponsorship for the FSF in return for free license consulting services. High-profile FSF patron affiliates include prominent technology companies like Google, Nokia, IBM, Cisco, and Intel. FSF involvement represents Sun's latest attempt to take a more active role in the open-source software community.
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Member since:2006-01-17
Interesting. I wonder how hard it would be for a distribution to switch kernels, and who might be the first?
Oh. A bit of googling says this is hardly a new idea. There's already a Debian based distro that uses Solaris
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki
I bet Debian will become more involved when GPLv3 drops.
This is sure to add some excitement to the Free OS scene (And complaints about fractualization). Bring it on!
Member since:2006-02-15
It will make no difference to Linux development.
The vast majority of the people who actually develop the Linux kernel do so because they care about the Linux kernel or are paid to work on the Linux kernel. The number who switch because of gplv3 versus gplv2 will be trivial.
Member since:2005-07-07
It will make no difference to Linux development.
The vast majority of the people who actually develop the Linux kernel do so because they care about the Linux kernel or are paid to work on the Linux kernel. The number who switch because of gplv3 versus gplv2 will be trivial.
I said nothing about development. I am talking about distribution. If there is a whole sale switch to GPLv3 (which I am NOT counting on, I am only making a point), distributors would be more likely to make a switch to the Solaris kernel to alleviate any possible license incompatibilities.
Member since:2006-02-15
I said nothing about development.
Nobody said you did.
I am talking about distribution. If there is a whole sale switch to GPLv3 (which I am NOT counting on, I am only making a point), distributors would be more likely to make a switch to the Solaris kernel to alleviate any possible license incompatibilities.
Distributors of what, Solaris?
None of the Linux distros are going to switch kernels just because of GPL versions. It's just more work than it's worth.
Besides, how could the GPLv3 create a license incompatibility with the GPLv2 when the FSF says it's only trying to solve the same problems?
Member since:2005-07-13
If there is a wholesale switch to GPLv3 the Linux kernel will be left out in the cold while the Solaris kernel will look a lot more enticing to Free Software distributors.
How is linux less enticing for free software distributors? And more to the point, who among the free software distributions, or even the freedom-or-nothing side of the community, are actually committing code to the kernel?
Are IBM and HP going to switch to supporting openSolaris with code contributions? Is Red Hat going to drop the linux kernel for openSolaris?
And considering the dual-licensing, will the free software community be contributing to the openSolaris kernel knowing that their contributions must be dual-licensed under CDDL/GPL, along with copyright assignment, in order to be accepted?
Or will the free software community, which makes up but a portion of the OSS community, manage to sustain a fork of openSolaris that's pure GPL, breaking away from the advantage of upstream support from Sun? Is that an incentive for Sun to adopt the GPL? So that the free software community can immediately strip it of CDDL licenses and prevent any community contributions back to Sun? Or from the community, will the Debian maintainers, who are having a hard enough time getting linux releases out the door, adopt a forked openSolaris kernel? Will the FSF be able to manage a forked openSolaris kernel as a GNU project?
I'm certainly not saying Sun's adoption of GPL v3 is a bad thing, but I am having a hard time envisioning why this is such a monumental win for the free software community when the fact of the matter is it will remain dual-licensed with Sun reserving the right to close future versions? Everybody keeps saying "Woo hoo! GPL!" without explaining what the really means in the overall scheme of things. If free software supporters are going to be comfortable contributing to a dual licensed CDDL/GPL project, what was the opposition to CDDL in the first place? Seems to me that openSolaris is fairly viable right now with CDDL licensing, and it's starting to build up a community of it's own, so I'm not sure where the change is going to come into play. There's a lot of sound and fury here, without much clarity, and I suspect that's sort of the intent from a corporate marketing point of view.
Empty arguments about Tivoisation aside (and I say empty because the people arguing against Tivoisation weren't actually producing the code that was Tivoized), linux is still the free software community's most viable kernel. Don't underestimate the advantage of it's de-centralized ownership. Heck, even the Hurd kernel will take a step back with v3 since they won't be able to relicense the linux driver code they have incorporated over time.
Again, not to take away from Sun, but let's wait and see how things shake out before speculating on the future of free software. v3 is not even out yet, and will take some time before it's impact can realistically be judged.
Member since:2005-07-08
Very well said. In addition to this and my argument below (Congrats to Sun for missing the point), it's worth clarifying that the GPLv3 is almost completely ineffective when combined with the CDDL. The latter is nearly always more permissive than the GPLv3, so the more restrictive parts of it can be legally side-stepped on the grounds that the CDDL grants a license to do what the GPLv3 prohibits. Essentially:
CDDL + GPLv3 == CDDL + under-informed fanboys
Member since:2005-07-07
How is linux less enticing for free software distributors? And more to the point, who among the free software distributions, or even the freedom-or-nothing side of the community, are actually committing code to the kernel?
That's besides the point. If there is a wholesale switch to GPLv3 then most likely Debian would switch to the Solaris kernel as they are closely tied with Free Software, which in turn could impact distributions based on Debian, of which there are many including the popular Ubuntu. Gentoo could also switch easily or at least provide the Solaris kernel as the default eventually, as they are already attempting to support multiple kernels.
Are IBM and HP going to switch to supporting openSolaris with code contributions? Is Red Hat going to drop the linux kernel for openSolaris?
It's a definite possibility. You don't understand that if Solaris goes GPLv3 it no longer belongs to SUN except in name only. It is then Free Software. It doesn't matter where it came from.
And considering the dual-licensing, will the free software community be contributing to the openSolaris kernel knowing that their contributions must be dual-licensed under CDDL/GPL, along with copyright assignment, in order to be accepted?
This is not the problem you make it out to be. We don't have to let Sun keep it if we don't want to. We can fork it and call it something else. Once it is GPLv3 no one can stop that from happening.
Or will the free software community, which makes up but a portion of the OSS community, manage to sustain a fork of openSolaris that's pure GPL, breaking away from the advantage of upstream support from Sun? Is that an incentive for Sun to adopt the GPL? So that the free software community can immediately strip it of CDDL licenses and prevent any community contributions back to Sun? Or from the community, will the Debian maintainers, who are having a hard enough time getting linux releases out the door, adopt a forked openSolaris kernel? Will the FSF be able to manage a forked openSolaris kernel as a GNU project?
The FSF doesn't have to maintain a fork. Someone else can, and it wouldn't be difficult considering the fact that they can fold all official Solaris kernel changes into their own kernel if they so wish. It would be rather trivial in fact because you have all the power of the official Solaris kernel release PLUS any additions that you want to include.
I'm certainly not saying Sun's adoption of GPL v3 is a bad thing, but I am having a hard time envisioning why this is such a monumental win for the free software community when the fact of the matter is it will remain dual-licensed with Sun reserving the right to close future versions?
Once GPL always GPL. It's completely out of Sun's control after that, just like Linus and Linux. If Sun is a good shepard of Solaris then it will stay "Solaris". If they are a bad shepard then it will be "Phoebus" or something else.
linux is still the free software community's most viable kernel
This is true...at the moment. All I am saying that if Solaris goes GPLv3 and so does everyone else, this may change.
Again, not to take away from Sun, but let's wait and see how things shake out before speculating on the future of free software. v3 is not even out yet, and will take some time before it's impact can realistically be judged.
Hmm. I'm not judging GPLv3. I'm merely speculating about the effect of a possible scenario, one that includes both the wholesale switch to GPLv3 and relicensing Solaris under the GPLv3.
Member since:
2005-07-07
This is good news for the the Free Software community but it could be bad news for the Linux kernel. If there is a wholesale switch to GPLv3 the Linux kernel will be left out in the cold while the Solaris kernel will look a lot more enticing to Free Software distributors.