"There's been a lot of talk on lists and blogs about an exchange between Linus Torvalds, Jonathan Schwartz and Theo de Raadt regarding licensing and documentation. It all started with a 'cynical' message from Linus about Sun's motivation with regard to Open Source. Jonathan Schwartz responded by extending Linus a dinner invitation. What? The romance was briefly interrupted by a message from Theo pointing out the doublespeak."
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Member since:2006-08-06
Actually, the OpenSPARC chip is incredibly well documented. What Theo is actually banging on about is the documentation for the Schizo pci bridge chip. Totally different issue.
My beef with Theo is that he seems to be completely unable to try to approach the Schizo bridge chip issue from a different route - all he ever seems to do is yell that Sun isn't open because of that chip... rather than trying to build a constructive working relationship with people from Sun who could actually help him. His preferences in this matter do him no credit.
Regarding ZFS and patent indemnity, ZFS is licensed under CDDL, which most definitely does have a patent indemnity grant as part of accepting the license. The "problem" is that if you cannot accept CDDL then you don't get access to the IP that's licensed under it.
Don't spread fud, get the facts and spread those instead.
Member since:2006-08-06
Forgot to add this url - OpenSPARC is available at http://www.opensparc.net and not only can you get the verilog code for the RTL, you can get the higher level documentation too.
Member since:2006-01-25
My beef with Theo is that he seems to be completely unable to try to approach the Schizo bridge chip issue from a different route - all he ever seems to do is yell that Sun isn't open because of that chip... rather than trying to build a constructive working relationship with people from Sun who could actually help him. His preferences in this matter do him no credit.
I don't know, Theo has been pretty consistent about having an agenda to get hardware companies to open up their specs. It isn't so much that HE wants/needs the specs for that chip, he is trying to get Sun to open them up for _anyone_.
Building constructive relationships is all well and good, and it might have gotten Sun to give him the specs (probably under NDA or something). But it won't convince them to change _policy_, that requires a different kind of tactic.
Being that Sun is a very image aware company that is trying to put on a good face for the OSS community, openly berating them is probably as good a tactic as any.
Member since:2005-07-06
If these people are going to complain about patents, why don't we (CDDL/OpenSolaris) people complain about how the GPL deliberately inhibits cross pollination between projects.
There is a code orgy going on between the various *BSD's, and Linux is the odd one out because Linus chose to use a licence that deliberately separates itself from the 'mainstream open source movement' - remember kiddies, the FSF and GPL do not equate to open source.
Member since:2005-07-12
GPL's projects don't seem to be limited in number by that fact, nor do they seem to be lacking in developers.
If projects licensed under non-GPL licenses are having such a code orgy, then why do they need (or even care about) code which is licensed under the GPL?
Edited 2007-06-17 08:09
Member since:2005-07-06
There is a code orgy going on between the various *BSD's, and Linux is the odd one out because Linus chose to use a licence that deliberately separates itself from the 'mainstream open source movement' - remember kiddies, the FSF and GPL do not equate to open source.
Yeah, that sums up the GPL attitude nicely. I you use a license that's incompatible with the GPL is your fault for choosing a crappy license and you deserve to be publicly ridiculed and hounded for your lack of freedom.
It's stupid - how can you defend openness with such a closed mind ?
Member since:
2005-07-06
Theo is spot on with his criticisns: Sun has poor harware documentation for a chip (OpenSparc) that is supposed to be a free (as in freedom) platform.
Another poster commented that ZFS has patents and Sun won't give patent indemity for it.