[Fwd: Re: [H-GEN] Solaris 10 give away]

McBofh McBofh at jmcp.id.au
Sun Jan 21 06:19:11 EST 2007


forgot my sender address....

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] Solaris 10 give away
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:11:57 +1100
From: James C. McPherson <James.McPherson at jmcp.id.au>
Reply-To: James.McPherson at jmcp.id.au
Organization: JMCP
To: Benjamin Carlyle <benjamincarlyle at optusnet.com.au>
CC: general at lists.humbug.org.au
References: <45AB2BF4.1060805 at server101.com>  <45AB61AA.9040203 at jmcp.id.au> 
  <1168871964.4676.15.camel at localhost.localdomain>	 
<45ABF7FB.2020402 at jmcp.id.au> <1169355776.6978.66.camel at localhost.localdomain>


Hi Ben,
I've read and re-read your email several times.

I think that for your case - working a vendor which
distributes a solution based on Solaris - if you
personally do not know what the arrangements are with
Sun regarding support and redistribution of the OS
and patches for it, then you should be asking your
company representative who talks directly to Sun's
support services division about these things. And
you should also continue to ask that person questions
about this whole thing until you are satisfied with
the answers. You *do* have such a role within your
company, don't you? If not ... then wtf not?


Now on to other matters. You appear to be approaching
the "Solaris 10 is free" and "OpenSolaris is free"
concepts from the viewpoint of the GPLv2, wherein
nothing except full GPLv2 compliance allows something
to be called "free."

I disagree with you on that.

Your reading of http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about
really does not match mine, nor does it match those of
other people who are part of the OpenSolaris community.

The next version of Solaris (ie, the product that Sun
will eventually release), will indeed be based on the
OpenSolaris source tree. It will not, to the best of my
knowledge, have any parts of that tree removed. It may
well, however, contain other pieces of software which
are encumbered and unable to released as source to the
world via OpenSolaris.

There are two main reasons why parts of OpenSolaris
can be restricted to the "closed bins" part of the
distribution. The first is that Sun's legal teams have
not finalised their review of that code and therefore
are legally unable to give the ok to release said code
to the world. The second - as you are no doubt aware -
is that the Solaris environment includes source which
is licensed under CDA or NDA from third parties. These
third parties are generally IHVs which are incredibly
reluctant to allow any hardware-specific code out into
the wild, since they generally view such code as their
corporate crown jewels.

You also said:
==========================================================
Sun seem to be trying to get mileage out of the fact that
open solaris is free (as in speech) to promote the main
solaris branch. They seem to be trying to position Solaris
as an alternative to linux as an operating system that
is viable in the long term, supported by a significant
community, and able to be used in environments where code
inspection and the ability for customers to understand
and fix problems is important.
==========================================================


Now I'm confused here. Is your complaint that Sun hasn't
released Solaris as OpenSolaris under GPLv2?

Are you worried that there might indeed be viable non-linux
operating systems which people and companies might choose
to use? What I see as a subtext to your comment above is
fear of competition. Please correct me if I am wrong.


Your other concerns regarding longevity of Sun's support
and licensing agreements can be answered by reading the
easily-found and publicly accessible documentation on sun.com
which deals with the support lifecycle and your other questions
in quite a comprehensive manner. You could also have a look
at
http://www.sun.com/service/consulting/index.jsp?tsubcat=Get%20Support%20Contract%20and%20Warranty%20Information&tab=4
(found at http://au.sun.com, mouseover Support, scroll down
until you get to "Service Plans and Warranties")



Finally, you claim that the CDDL is "unknown and unpredictable".
I am sure you are very well aware - having researched this in
a comprehensive fashion - that the CDDL is based on the Mozilla
Public License, with changes that remove the explicit jurisdiction
limitation (so that you as Author do not have to travel to Santa
Clara in order to litigate or defend against such litigation),
and with the addition of what I refer to (remember that IANAL) as
the "mutually-assured destruction" clause for patents. By that I
am referring to the requirement that if you contribute code to a
project licensed under CDDL which you know to be encumbered by a
patent, but you fail to disclose the encumbrance and do not abide
by the other patent-specific terms of the license, then any attempt
to enforce said patent will result in you being denied the right to
use whatever code is in that project.

To my mind, the CDDL is quite well-known (if only for its heritage)
and it is *very* predictable. Sun went to a heckuvalot of effort
with various opensource communities, the FSF, the OpenSource Initiative
and their legal team in order to provide a license that is appropriate
for the task, and which is friendly to those who want to contribute
or otherwise use projects/products/content licensed under it.



best regards,
James C. McPherson
--
Solaris kernel software engineer, system admin and troubleshooter
               http://www.jmcp.homeunix.com/blog
Find me on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescmcpherson






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