Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 19th Jun 2007 10:29 UTC, submitted by binarycrusader
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Member since:
2005-07-12
"I think it's interesting how some people just can't admit it when Theo's right , no matter what, and instead opt to root for the big companies who really don't give a fsck about OSS."
But Theo is completely wrong. He's assuming that all the documentation is already there, and that Sun has complete legal clearance to release it to the public. As Simon Phipps clearly explained (and you might want to actually read his blog linked in the subject of this thread), there are other considerations. But since you evidently have not read what he had to say, here it is in summation:
1. The product in question may be past it's end-of-life date and there's actually no team anywhere in Sun that can answer the question.
2. The documentation may not exist. Writing it would require costly reverse engineering (even if people with the skills to do so are still at Sun).
3. It may exist for internal use, but releasing it outside Sun would need legal review to check for 'trade secrets' belonging to others. That legal review is time consuming and costs real money. And the answer may turn out to be "can't release, can't name the company that's obstructing us".
4. It may exist and it may be possible to release it. Doing that, though, is actually a non-zero cost since usually the documentation is in an old format of some kind.
5. It may actually exist in an online-ready form.
So, clearly, simply releasing requested documentation is more complicated than you or Theo obviously assume. Now, if Theo said he would pay for Sun's costs (whether that's legal, or reverse engineering, if need be), then he'd have more of a point.
Otherwise, I strongly believe Sun's intentions are reasonable. And, as I've said, Sun has increasingly become a major contributor and friend of open source, especially under Jonathan Schwartz's leadership.
So it seems ridiculous to me for open source leaders or advocates to turn around and slap Sun in the face for giving absolutely everything they want, right away. They just comes off as being obstinate little children. Meanwhile, in their responses in their blogs, both Jonathan Schwartz and Simon Phipps have come off as mature, professional, pleasant adults doing what they can to appease the ever fickle open source community.
And I'm not rooting for "the big corporations". On the contrary, I'm always extremely distrustful of all major corporations, and always favor the the little guy. That's why I never shop at WalMart and favor small Mom & Pop shops instead. That's one of the reasons I have a strong dislike for Microsoft. And I hate PG&E. And I think Larry Ellison is a snake. Need I go on? Clearly I'm not a corporate fanboy.
And Sun does "give a fsck about OSS". Under Schwartz, it has staked it's present and future on open source, systematically releasing most of it's software portfolio to open source, not the least of which was GPLing Java. What the hell else do you want from them?
I just believe in giving credit where credit is due. And Sun is earning major kudos from me. Just because they don't have all documentation immediately available for all of their chips doesn't mean they're not trying. Accusing them of "duplicity" is a low blow and uncalled for.
Just give them a friggin' break, for goodness sake. And grow up while you're at it.