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Sun Exec Backs GPLv3
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Dec 07, 2006 05:43 PM
from the friends-in-high-places dept.
from the friends-in-high-places dept.
Hyperbeth writes "Sun's chief open-source officer Simon Phipps said that existing work towards GPLv3 had been 'extraordinary and effective' and he said he is 'frankly amazed by the criticisms'. The article notes that Mr. Phipps' comments are somewhat surprising, given that the recent open-sourcing of Java went forward with GPLv2." From the article: "I am frankly amazed by the criticisms that have [been] levelled at the GPLv3 process. They seem to ignore the incredible and positive way it is evolving and just find fault with things that are already the subject of work... I would be very surprised if the final GPLv3 was not an effective tool for some of the communities Sun sustains or will initiate in the future."
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He's Amazed (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:He's Amazed (Score:4, Insightful)
In questions of licensing and use of unfree software if it scratches his itch? That's at least debatable.
Parent
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The OP characterized anyone who disagrees with him as stupid. He didn't say that they were just unqualified to comment on it, or something like that.
Regardless of whether the GPLv3 is good or not, claiming that everyone who doesn't like it is stupid is ... well, stupid.
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The article notes that Mr. Phipps' comments are somewhat surprising, given that the recent open-sourcing of Java went forward with GPLv2
There is nothing surprising about this. GPL v3 in final, legally binding form doesn't exist yet, so of course any GPLed software released now will use GPL v2. It will only be surprising if future releases of Java don't use GPL v3 after it is finalized.
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It will only be surprising if future releases of Java don't use GPL v3 after it is finalized.
What would be most surprising to me is if Sun stops making it available in GPLv2 form, whether or not they also make available the GPLv3 license. It's hard to argue that adding a new incompatible, more restrictive open source license is going to improve the acceptance of such software, and I think Sun is wise enough not to fork their codebase. My guess is they'll require submissions to be able to be made available under either license (ie. no copying in GPLv3 code from external sources.)
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"or later version" is best of 2 imperfect options (Score:2)
What if you hate v3 when it is finished? You can change "v2 or later" to "v2 only", and the older versions with the "or later" bit will bitrot away.
What if you love v3 when it is finished? You do nothing, or you change "v2 or later" to "v3 or later". No need to track down all the copyright holders.
So "or later" isn't perfect, but it's a
quite so (Score:2)
It's amazing that a tech journalist would be unaware of this. Isn't it?
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It is asked that you don't use it in the current draft form, and because it does not qualify as a "later version" of GPLv2, it will still be incompatible with GPLv2 and GPLv3, even if you've used the "or later versions" wording in your copyright notices.
... went forward with GPLv2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Great for Sun. (Score:2)
Of course he says this. It will mean something when Solaris us placed under it.
Re:Great for Sun. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does this have to be the case? Why does it have to be black and white, all or nothing? Why can't open source be the right answer for some of Sun's projects and not the right answer for others? This seems perfectly sensible to me.
Parent
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It's not so much that it has to be GPLv3 (though the latter is an attempt to create a copyleft license that addresses all of the concerns that, currently, mean we have several totally incompatible copyleft licenses), it's more that there has to be a common license that people, for the most part, consider usable.
Right now, we have a situation where because, for example, Solaris is licensed under the CDDL, and Darwin is under the APSL, you can't put code from one in the other. Because of similar licensing
Java? (Score:2)
Ups, wrong religion war.
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Sure, YOU won't buy DRMed hardware but other people will or, more likely, they won't even know about it and without the GPL3 its possible all of our collective work will be used yet we will not be free to do anything with our work on that hardware. The GPL is about freedo
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It doesn't, and nobody in this conversation was claiming that anyway.
What LWATCDR was trying to say (and AuMatar was trying to clarify) is that the Sun exec (Simon Phipps) claims to like the GPLv3, but we won't know for certain whether he really likes it until he licenses Java or Solaris or or OpenOffice or something under it.
In other words, the issue under discussion is the truthfulness of his statement, not the merits of the GPLv3.
Re:Great for Sun. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there's great things to be found, even for businesses in free software -- I just wish people saw it as more an option and less a religion.
Parent
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You are asking the wrong question. if you sunstitute Free Software for open source (software) you might get better answers.
all the best,
drew
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I think that is a reasonable avenue to persue. I hope you see this response AC...
BTW, I am generally a Free Software guy and that is not necessarily my position. (That is that the GPL is the one and only proper license.)
all the best,
drew
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I am no fan of Sun, but they did make a lot of contributions (not just open source but things like NFS, NIS, and many other things they invented in the early days).
Java and DRM on GPLv3 (Score:4, Interesting)
No that's not what the GPLv3 does.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can use GPLv3 software to impliment DRM all day and night if you feel like it. Play DRM'd music, use it on DRM'd operating systems, etc etc etc.
What is anti-DRM about the GPL is that you can't use DRM to remove the ability for people to modify software and then be able to run those modified versions.
the GPLv3 only cares about the program. It doesn't care about the hardware or any DMR'd media or anything like that.
Anyways DRM is a failed technology. I give it another 3-5 years then nobody is going to give a shit anymore, at least anybody that matters. (repeat after me children: failed business model = irrelevent)
Nobody has yet to come out with a effective DRM and it is only used to be abused by companies like Apple and Microsoft so that people have a harder time moving away from using Ipods or Windows, because your file formats that are DRM'd are locking you into a paticular hardware (ipod) or software (future versions of Office).
Parent
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Microsoft has succeeded (thus far) with the Xbox 360's DRM system. I have not heard about anyone successfully pirating games on an Xbox 360. I would not be surprised if the PS3 and the Wii were similar.
The last wave of consoles was strong enough, CPU-wise, that it got people talking about emulation of older systems. For me, personally, the news that the Wii will eventually have an entire back catalog going back about 10 years or so is sweet enough to me that I won't shed any tears if the internals are never really probed. On top of that, this generation's consoles all use (more) standard architectures: The Xbox 360 has its custom IBM setup, the PS3 uses the Cell, and the Wii uses a PPC-based chip, the
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http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/21/how-to-create-
Also see xbox-scene.com for various tutorials.
Why is this a shock? (Score:3, Insightful)
GPLv3 is going to be examined?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Suns praticipating, IBM praticipating, HP is praticipating. Anybody that has any stake in Free and Open source software is praticipating. They have their lawyers all over it.
when it gets released it WILL the most well reviewed open source license in history. Maybe even the most well reviewed software license ever.
It will eliminate the need for a whole class of licenses. Licenses that desire to be 'more free' then the GPL, but want to stay GPL-compatable.
The GPLv3 + exceptions is beuatfull and it is flexible in what sort of additional restrictions it can take. It will make it more compatable with Apache licenses, Mozilla licenses, and dozens of others. It may even be CDDL compatable.
It will help standardize licenses and make them easier to deal with and have less legal questions cloading the Linux arena.
The Patent language has long been needed and it is much more liberal and easier for companies to deal with then what is already used in MPL, CDDL, or the modern Apache licenses. Much more well designed then those supposwdly 'more corporate friendly license'. The Novell-Microsoft deal highlights the need for reform in this area of the GPL, there needs to be a intellegent and standard way to deal with this stuff and GPLv3 should provide it.
Parent
Re:GPLv3 is going to be examined?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:GPLv3 is going to be examined?! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a sad thing. The GPLv3, like almost everything RMS has done in his free software fight, will be great. RMS is strange and one of those people who always seem wrong and way out, but time and again events have shown that when it matters—there's no-one I'd rather trust on matters he talks of.
Parent
No surprise at all... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the entire OSS community owes Sun a big thank you.
We should now embrace Java and incorporate it into Linux. We should push away from ASP.net and move toward making Java the defacto standard for web applications and Java script the standard for dynamic web pages.
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LiveScript (Score:2, Insightful)
The important thing is that Mono and
Microsoft has shown over and over that they aren't interested in playing fair or giving any quarter so the OSS communi
Re:No surprise at all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm aware of, although Linux has been a competitor to Solaris (in Sun's eyes) in the past, they didn't actively try to sabotage it, they just acted indifferently at times; although now they fully support it (All Sun hardware is certified Linux compatible, etc.).
Umm... No, they sued Microsoft, and won, settling for $2 billion for the dirty tricks MS played trying to embrace and extend Java. And by the way, why in the hell do people keep ripping on Sun for stupid shit like this? Sun FUCKING GAVE YOU GUYS OpenOffice, out of pure generosity and to contribute to Free FUCKING Software. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.
Again FUCK NO! Sun has licensed Unix System V from Santa Cruz Operation for several years now, as they are the proxy that licenses the original AT&T Unix code to companies like HP (HP-UX), IBM (AIX), SGI (IRIX), and Sun (Solaris). Every one of those companies pays licenses to SCO in order to legally be able to sell UNIX. Looks like everyone that runs commercial Unix funds SCO to some degree... Guess we're all guilty.
I can't believe you're such a loser that you still give Sun a hard time after all they have done for the Free Software community. Richard M. Stallman himself said that Sun had released more lines of free software source code than any other single entity (paraphrasing because I can't find the quote right now). So why can't you just forgive them and say "good job, cheers" for a change?
Disclaimer: I currently work in an environment with all HP hardware and RHEL 4. But I have worked on a lot of Sun's and we still have a lot left in our data center.
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Maybe buying StarOffice was cheap. However, many Sun engineers have been maintaining and improving OpenOffice for the last 6 years. There are still a lot of things that could be better with OpenOffice, but the progress from 1.0 to 2.0 was amazing, and Sun must have payed for most of it. I am really curios whether doing all this development in the open was overall beneficial for Sun (it surely was beneficial for the community). I remember they had their hard time
Original Article (Score:5, Informative)
To see what I actually said, rather than relying on the ZDNet extracts, you'll find the original blog posting here [sun.com]. It's linked from the article but clearly from some of the comments above some people haven't spotted the link.
Thought the summary was vacuous... (Score:2)
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In fact my amazement stems from the fact that intelligent people who I respect are criticising things (like the DRM language) that have already been substantially altered, but arguing as if there has been no change to them. Sorry you find the whole thing "vacuous", you are clearly a Higher Intellect.
Re:Thought the summary was vacuous... (Score:4, Informative)
It's a hot topic and there are plenty of voices for and against. It was like this discussing the use of the GPL for the Java platform though, extensive and passionate debate right up to the last minute. In the end GPL v2 with the Classpath exception was clearly preferable, but every possible option was explored.
One key difference with Solaris though is that the base source code is already open source Free software and is in the care of the OpenSolaris community [opensolaris.org], so while Sun obviously gets a big say in what happens it's not just down to us, the community will also need to discuss it.
Parent
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stop oversimplifying (Score:2)
First of all, GPLv3 isn't out yet, so Sun can't release under it. And it's understandable that many people are reluctant to release under "GPLv2 or later".
Furthermore, you can't judge licenses just by what they say, you have to judge them in context. Sun is not releasing Java under GPLv2; if they did, that would have been open-source hostile. What they did is announce th
Well let's see (Score:2)
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Of course, by Proprietary software company you mean Proprietary software company which has recently GPL'ed what it's probably its most valuable software asset, right?