Sun Considering GPL For OpenSolaris 215
narramissic writes, "At an event today to formally open-source Java, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and CEO, and Rich Green, the company's senior VP of software had an exchange in which Schwartz put Green on the spot about using GPL for OpenSolaris: 'Are you averse to changing the license, Rich Green?' Schwartz asked. 'Certainly not,' Green responded, prompting the Sun CEO to fire back in a half-joking manner: 'Will you GPL Solaris, Mr. Green?' 'We will take a close look at it,' Green said, adding that it was possible that the familiarity and comfort level many developers have with the GPL may result in Sun adopting it for OpenSolaris." Another note about Sun's decision to use the GPL for Java comes from reader squiggleslash, who writes: "According to Jonathan Schwartz, the decision of Novell and Microsoft to '(suggest) that free and open source software wasn't safe unless a royalty was being paid' is what prompted Sun to finally come down on using the GPL for Java. So I guess every cloud has a silver lining."
Yeah sure... (Score:3, Insightful)
A company the size of Sun does not move that quickly, especially so far as legal matters go. Besides, there has been talk of GPLing Java before Christmas for months.
Sun saw a chance to take a shot at Microsoft/Novell and they took it. Can't say I fault them, but its fairly obviously a lie.
Re:That would be awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'm sure that there wouldn't be any little companies from Utah [sco.com] that wouldn't just LOVE to see that Unix code REALLY get imported into the Linux kernel.
Where's those guys with their "itsatrap" tags when you need them?
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux would get DTrace, ZFS, etc. Those techs are about as cutting edge as it gets. What would Solaris get?
Re:ZFS (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to see all this in Linux but I'm thinking even if it were GPLed there would be a lot of work to do to port it. And of course after its ported, the Linux devs would probably make a big stink about accepting it using lines like "a file system should only put files on a block device!" ZFS however is a different approach to storing files and in many ways much better.
Re:Another dumb move (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that, although it is true that Sun is gradually open sourcing all of its software, most of what Sun makes it enterprise software. What company is really going to use Sun's RFID software to run a warehouse floor, or use Sun's identity management software to manage authentication and access control for an entire enterprise, and not get a support contract from Sun? Open sourcing this type of stuff probably doesn't impact Sun's sales negatively one iota. Open sourcing Java may be riskier, but I'm curious to see how it really pans out.
Re:Which *version* of the GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not a minor issue. The big headache with any GNU/Linux distribution is the complicated and often intractable support matrices - a result of the fluid nature of the kernel API.
Re:Which *version* of the GPL (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:BSD License (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ZFS (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't decide whether Sun has balls of spent Uranium or if they're just really disparate. Possibly both. But I really like this, and I hope their services and hardware businesses benefit accordingly.
Sun makes the vast bulk of their money from hardware sales and support. They have little (if anything) to lose from GPLing Solaris.
Contrast this to, say, Microsoft, who makes most of their money from software sales. Clearly, GPLing their software would be financial suicide.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SUN GPL'ing OpenSolaris? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That would be awesome! (Score:2, Insightful)
ZFS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sun may have taken MS $$$ to not GPL Solaris (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, I would really like to see some evidence of that. As it stands, it's just an absurd claim with no support. Having (over a period of 15+ years) used Sun equipment and software, and having worked with the company as a customer, and having known people who were employees at Sun, I would say that the chances of this being true are about 0.01%. Sun doesn't like being told what to do by Microsoft, or have you forgotten that Sun once famously sued Microsoft over Java and also once banned PowerPoint presentations? In fact, here's a Scott McNealy quote about the PowerPoint thing:
So, it's really hard to believe that a company with this history would be in bed with Microsoft and on some kind of anti-GPL crusade. Anyway, you also said:
I hardly see how this can be considered flip-flopping. Two years, neither Solaris nor Java was open source in any sense. A year ago (approximately), Solaris was open-sourced. Today, Java was open-sourced, and they mentioned they are thinking of adding GPL to the list of licenses for Solaris. This seems like a steady trend in the direction of open source.
So what? Dovecot [dovecot.org] is a really cool GPL-ed POP/IMAP server, and I don't recall the FSF making any announcement when it was released. Nor do I recall the FSF making any announcement when many other things were released under the GPL. It's not necessary because the GPL speaks for itself.
What common ancestors? Solaris is based on System V Unix from AT&T, not on BSD. Yes, Solaris 1.x (a/k/a SunOS 4.x) was based on BSD, but it was pretty much totally rewritten before Solaris 2.x, so Solaris 2.x (and 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.) have very little in common with Solaris 1.x, and thus very little in common with BSD. You will notice that /usr/bin/ps
on Solaris takes options like "-ef" rather than
options like "aux", and you will also notice that
sh's echo command needs "\c" in
the string instead of "-n" as a separate argument
if you want to supress the newline. So you can see that
the Solaris command-line utilities are not very BSD-like.
Re:Another dumb move (Score:3, Insightful)
The dual license isn't another product. It's another set of terms through which another entity can distribute copies of your product, presumably with a different set of restrictions.
What you have to lose from the GPL is the likelihood of ever selling your software. What you have to gain is the relatively remote possibility that other people will be nice enough to improve your product for free.
You have the good will of your customers to gain. If your product is worth its salt, which not all are, you'll sell licenses in any case. Larger entities will definitely buy, and a large number of them will not use anything that does not have some sort of paid support structure.
Microsoft. Most game companies. There's no shortage of companies (or corporate departments) who derive most of their money from selling software (or software licenses).
Microsoft makes their share from publishing MCSE training materials as well. Most game publishers make their money from selling some (but definitely not all or even most) software, the whole thing being a gamble of who will buy which typically shelf life limited product first. Those that last for a longer time without languishing on the shelf tend to be those with an additional cost, such as WoW and EQ.
I didn't say companies who had _no_ other sources of revenue, I said companies who derive most of their money from software sales. The GPL makes that essentially impossible and, hence, removes those companies' business models. *THAT* is why TrollTech dual-licence QT - because they know if they didn't they would have a great deal of trouble making enough money to stay in business.
You said major sources of revenue, and both training and support can be major sources. TrollTech added the GPL to their product because their customers demanded it; the QPL was there before, and no doubt some customers were already using those terms who may not wish to use the GPL.
What I find ironic is that even the people who steadfastly insist the GPL is "business friendly" usually do so in the same breath they say "because you can just dual license" - seemingly unaware they're shooting down their own argument.
No, what's convenient about the GPL is that you protect your product from proprietary exploitation by your competitors in a modified form that you cannot use yourself. No one-upsmanship where you cannot follow, unless they pay you for the privilege. An additional license is simply an agreement between yourself and those who want different terms, with a different pricing tier.