On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 03:44:34PM +0200, Juhapekka Tolvanen wrote:
> Okay... Maybe you all have heard that Solaris 10 will be under Open
> Source-license. Now they have released at least some kind of license
> text:
>
> http://www.sun.com/cddl/
>
> http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:9125:200412:dmcacncfamieofeochbn
>
> Is that license free according to DFSG?
Not intrinsically. Individual applications of it may be, with a
liberal interpretation, or may not be, with a lawyer one. Notably it's
capable of failing the Chinese Dissident test, and of containing a
choice-of-venue provision. It also has a number of weasel-worded
lawyer clauses that could be used in nasty ways (especially around the
patent section; I suspect that this license is not adequete to avoid
patent-controlled software, so our usual
ignore-patents-unless-enforced approach will have to suffice).
Yeah, it's another of those irritating buggers. We'll have to analyse
each license declaration that invokes this thing. Maybe somebody could
formulate a sample declaration that always forms a free license.
> We are living really exciting times. Just think about it: Sun trying to
> release their Unix under Open Source license.
You seem to have fallen for Sun's PR. When Sun say 'Open Source' they
don't mean free software. They mean that you get to look at the source
to their software. That's all. (Another example of why 'Open Source'
is a dumb name).
They do not consider the freedoms to modify or redistribute to be
requirements for an 'Open Source' license. Most of their so-called
'Open Source' licenses are proprietary, to varying degrees.
Yes, it is quite possible that this is what they mean for Solaris
10. They've been evasive so far. Wait for the product before you begin
pimping it.
Also, I noticed this in their rationale:
* Provision for termination of rights in response to patent claims
(i.e. "patent peace" provision); this helps discourage
patent litigation amongst the community, which we felt to be A
Good Thing.
[...]
* Narrowed the "patent peace" provisions to cover only
software released under this license. We felt that this would
make the license more acceptable to a diverse community of
contributors, whether large or small. However, we believe that
"patent peace" has an important role to play in open
source licenses, which is why we have strengthened the
remaining such provision.
I find the name to be very appropriate, and I respond with this quote:
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone renounced violence forever? I
could then conquer the whole stupid planet with just a butter knife".
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ |
`. `' |
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