Anything IBM can do, Sun can do better?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| AnonymousCoward Jan 25, 2005 5:27 PM EDT |
As long as the creative commons of the world at large is the beneficiary, is say bring it on! (-: Hmm. I wonder if we can convince Microsoft to donate some patents as well so they don't look like total Scrooges? Or would it be more effective to simply point them out as tightwads to others? |
| bstadil Jan 25, 2005 7:37 PM EDT |
Hogwash! You can not use those 1600 patents in any GPL'ed software, so they pose a risk to Linux rather than a benefit. A risk in the sense that they could contaminate the "minds" of linux of developers that read the Solaris code. As usual SUN is full of it |
| r_a_trip Jan 26, 2005 12:31 AM EDT |
Not Correct! Sun gives the selected group of OpenSolaris Developers immunity against patent attack from Sun and that was required for Sun to even be able to harbour the hope of getting any outside developers. Those 1600 patents are restricted to Sun's CDDL only. This is a very paltry offer in comparison to IBM's patent pledge, which applies to any OSI compliant license and not to a specific one. Sun is trying to pull an Apple here. Apple released the bare core of Mac OS X to the community under the APSL. By doing so, Darwin became largely uncombinable with other FOSS code and as such it kept strict ties to Apple. From a strictly technological point of view Darwin may very well be innovative, but looking practically at it, it is a Nix that emulates the BSD userland. Darwin got a small developers community and some of those seem to hope to be able to recreate Mac OS X. Darwin simply has not yielded anything other than an undistinctive YAN (Yet Another Nix). The only true beneficiary is Apple. They got a community that maintains their base OS for free and Apple makes the big bugs with the closed Aqua GUI layer. I expect Sun to do the same here. Just release the uninteresting tidbits to the community and make For Pay Solaris something different than OpenSolaris. It is just outsourcing development of their base OS to an OpenSolaris community. I expect Java to go CDDL as wel. (Don't know if they can relicense future OpenOffice.org releases under the CDDL.) This way Sun could make an endrun around the current FOSS community and become centerstage of the FOSS world through sheer volume of their codebase and therefor CDDL license dominance, or so they think. |
| devnet Jan 26, 2005 7:22 AM EDT |
I wish I could open source my laundry... That way the community would wash it for me and I wouldn't have to do it myself. That's what communities based around companies boil down to. We do their laundry and they let us wear a few nice shirts. |
| sbergman27 Jan 26, 2005 8:27 AM EDT |
I don't really distinguish based on company vs noncompany. I do make a distinction based upon copyright assignment. An open-source project in which some agency insists upon the authors signing over their copyrights, or signing a joint copyright agreement in order to get the code included in the official release is of quite a different character than one which does not require this. It's difference between "we all have to play by the rules" and "you have to play by the rules, but we don't". (I might make an exception for FSF projects, though.) Anyone know how Sun plans to handle this issue? -Steve Bergman |
| devnet Jan 26, 2005 9:53 AM EDT |
sbergman27 So, you won't do my laundry? :p |
| peragrin Jan 26, 2005 10:49 AM EDT |
devnet: please overnight UPS your dirty laundry to Peragrin 1234 Microsoft Way Hell, NY 12345 Your laundry will be cleaned by our expert techs, and returned to you in a small box. Please note we aren't responsible for damaged and missing items. don't ask for a signature as no one here signs anything. |
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