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Torvalds vs Schwartz GPL Wars
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jun 13, 2007 07:58 AM
from the which-one-is-han-solo dept.
from the which-one-is-han-solo dept.
javipas writes "The controversial message published by Linus Torvalds (mirrored) in the Linux Kernel Mailing List was from the beginning to the end an open attack to Sun and its Open Source strategy. Linus criticized Sun's real position on GPL, and claimed that Linux could be dangerous to Sun. Upon his words, "they may be talking a lot more [about Open Source] than they are or ever will be doing." Jonathan Schwartz's blog has been updated today with a post that is a direct response to Linus claims, but in a much more elegant and coherent way. Sun's CEO notes that "Companies compete, communities simply fracture", and tries to explain why using GPL licenses is taking so long."
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It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called "politics".
Parent
Re:It's flame time (Score:4, Insightful)
Even Linus and Andy Tanenbaum respect each other, I think. Otherwise they wouldn't care what the hell the other thought. The verbal fencing is just nerdy snark at DEFCON 2. If you can't read "You would've failed in my class" with a chuckle, then you've been watching too much politics on TV. Linus would've wrecked the curve in Tanenbaum's class. He didn't design a monolithic kernel structure out of ignorance; he had a goal, and he thought that was the best way to go about it.
I wouldn't quite say "nothing to see here"...but there's no actual malice. These are two guys who are smarter than I am; I read what they think and why, and am smarter for it on both sides.
Parent
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
So without any actual proof (or even evidence) that Linus' design was solid, he certainly would've failed. And even now, I don't think that Tanenbaum admits that monolithic or hybrid kernels (because let's face it, Linux isn't 100% monolithic) are actually better; the most you'll probably get out of him is "yes, they're being used widely, and they haven't failed catastrophically, but microkernels are still be fundamentally better".
He's a zealot, basically (and I don't automatically mean in a bad way - he's just a zealot the same kind that, say, RMS is a zealot), whereas Linus is a pragmatic engineer (he sure has some strong opinions, too, but he can always back them up and he's willing to change them if presented with convincing evidence that they're wrong). That's the fundamental difference between the two, and it's also why Linus would've failed if he had been in Tanenbaum's class and if he hadn't changed his design according to Tanenbaum's wishes.
That being said, to not make this an entirely off-topic post, keep in mind that Schwartz is not an engineer, either. He wants to sell you a product - nothing more, nothing less.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tannenbaum isn't a zealot - he's an academic, as in theoretical.
RMS is most definitely a zealot - as in rabid. He'd have done Simon proud.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would have thought that Dijkstra's work on concurrency was directly relevant to OS design.
Given that Linus originally intended to produce a better kernel for Minix I would say that he achieved that goal. I don't think that AST would give Minix a passing grade if it was turned in for his OS class either. But at the time Minix was missing various features, and newer hardware support which AST did not want to add himself. If you consider the orig
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, this is obviously going to drive Paris back to page 7 of the tabloids. We'll just have to suffer through the 24/7 news coverage on all the cable news channels until this explosive story dies out. I feel bad for Torvalds and Schwartz for having to put up with the constant paparazzi swarming around them, but if you live so much in the public eye like them it's something you just have to deal with.
Parent
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, we may see a nice flamewar here on Slashdot. But Sun, for their part, are not playing into that in any way. Actually even Linus's post was fairly tame (by Linus standards at least, he mentioned that he could be wrong about some things).
Parent
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no flaming in either post, nor really much at all in Schwartz's.
Someone on the LKML was talking about how Sun says lots of nice things about what their going to do with open source. Linus said essentially, "Looking at their history, they say lots of nice things, but only do anything substantive when it's in their self interest, as you'd expect."
Then Schwartz responded by.... saying lots of nice things.
Parent
To be fair... (Score:3, Informative)
Schwartz said more than just some nice things. He explained that moving an existing product to the GPL is more difficult than a product that you start and just put under the GPL to begin with. The existing products can have third party code that was licensed. These parties may not want their code put under the GPL.
I can see that you would want to know where every line of code came. This could take time. If you found third party code that was l
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly, re-licensing a significant code base with lots of contributors is not trivial; it is a good point, if one Linus is pretty obviously already aware of. But Linus' point is that historically, announcements from Sun about the great things their going to contribute to the open source community significantly outstrip the amount of great things that have eventually become available for inclusion in GPL(2) licensed projects like the Linux kernel. This is not a point that can be convincingly countered w
Re:Is this going to hurt? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Schwartz should reply in a mailing list (Score:2, Funny)
Link to Linus' message (Score:3, Informative)
lkml already refusing connections... (Score:2)
ahh.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ahh.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
License changes take a loooong time (Score:5, Informative)
Many moons ago, I was at Sun Opcom when they were trying to release Solaris 8 source to anyone who would sign a non-disclosure, and it was insanely hard to find the rightful owners and get permission to do so much as publish the code.
If my leaky memory is correct, a number of files had to be rewritten from scratch, just to be able to release them to an audince of friendly customers.
You can imagine how hard it is to hunt down and relicense everything as GPLv3, for either Linux or Solaris! Kudos to Scott and Jonathan for their perseverance.
--dave
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree ... kudos to Sun as long as they actually do release everything GPLv3! If that happens then Sun have a winner on their hands for people that want Free software that can't be taken advantage of by manoeuverings like the Novell/Microsoft deal. Coupled with a Free java that makes for a much more appealing platform than a GPLv2 GNU/Linux. I'm sure that Linus is aware of that, and indeed his position has softened from complete hostility to GPLv3 to trying to negotiate with the hated FSF.
To paraphra
Re:License changes take a loooong time (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I do think Linus wants to help people, it's just that he's a very practical kind of person, and isn't motivated by the same things as either the FSF or a company. And perhaps isn't all that impressed by either (;-))
I suspect he's going to be impressed if and only if FSF release a clean GPLv3 and Sun releases an GPL'd Solaris. Those would make it far more practical for he and the Solarii to compete in the area which I consider most important: code quality.
--dave
Parent
Working the way RMS intended (Score:4, Interesting)
That may be the major reason for Linus's striking change of heart on GPLv3.
You have to wonder whether RMS talked to Sun at all about this. We do know that he has praised the company for the decision to GPL Java. If RMS wanted to strongarm Linux into a license change, what better way to do it than through ZFS?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're partly right: for small machines, I've found Linux perfomance excellent, and they do have a whole bunch of good ideas. Building an ltrace (shared-library call-tracer) that can jump in and trace a running process was cool, and clearly better than Solaris apptrace (of which I was one of the three authors).
I mostly work with large data centres, and personally run SPARC Solaris except on one machine, and that one's Linux. I find them very interoperable, and I enjoy watching both Linus and the
oh man (Score:5, Funny)
most.. awkward.. date.. ever.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Better check them for recording devices too.
Curse you (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
> maid uniform
Just imagine the grin on Melinda's face as she dresses him that morning:
"Oh, don't worry dear. It's what all the other CEO's are wearing".
c.
Re:oh man (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It gets much worse when he shows up and there are candles lit and Barry White on the stereo.
TFS (Score:3, Insightful)
Schwartz has the right attitude (Score:3, Insightful)
Very nice attitude.
Linus needs to stop speaking for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linus needs to stop speaking for Linux (Score:5, Informative)
I also think it goes without saying that they speak for Linux, the kernel, when they offer their opinions. It seems like they've made good decisions up to this point, so we have no reason to not trust them. Sun has promises, but not much else outside of some garbage apps, which isn't much reason to trust them.
Parent
Re:Linus needs to stop speaking for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole thing?
This is incredibly unfair given that Sun has released OpenOffice, Java, NFS, major GNOME improvements, Solaris, SPARC, and a variety of other significant items into open source. While Sun struggled for a while before they got it right (they were hesitant to give up their favorite lawsuit club for beating Microsoft over the head), they did eventually embrace true OSS licensing.
While I understand his frustration with Sun's glacial pace, he needs to remember that Linux usage would be nowhere near where it is today if not for several key contributions by Sun.
Similarly not fair and incendiary. Yes, Sun has their own operating system. But they also sell a lot of Linux servers and even tried jumping on the distro bandwagon for a while. Again, Sun is having a lot of difficulty rationalizing the two different OSes. But that does NOT mean that they are hostile toward Linux development. Open sourcing Solaris isn't so much as an attempted coup (IMHO) as it is a rational attempt to find a middle ground between Sun's existing codebase and the Linux codebase.
I'm fairly certain that Linus will be eating those words in the future. ZFS is already under the CDDL license, which means that it can be included by distributions already. Just not folded into the core code. I'm certain that this will change with time, and that the CDDL will eventually be eschewed in favor of the GPL. Sort of like Sun's 500 licenses for Java before they finally got where they were going.
Ok.
Q: Self, what did Sun not release under OpenSolaris?
A: Oh, that's easy self. They didn't release any code encumbered by previous licensing problems and/or someone else's trade secret. These components are the reason why most companies refuse to OSS their software even after they have no use for it anymore. Sun took a different approach and cleaned the codebase before release. They had the same problem with releasing the Java2D and JavaSound implementatons under the GPL. They were unable to release these components because they were owned by Kodak and Dolby respectively.
This is just plain hubris. Anyone who has spent time in the Java community knows why Sun was so difficult about releasing control over Java: Microsoft.
.NET/C#) that Sun felt they were in the clear. So they slowly released it, with a strong eye toward potential forking and incompatibilities. And to be perfectly honest, Sun never understood why the community wanted their codebase so badly. But the community pushed, and Sun eventually gave in. (Primarily due to Schwartz's leadership!)
Microsoft tried the whole Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish with Java. The only thing that saved it was Sun's legal department. It wasn't until MS was fully committed to their COOL project (ni,
FWIW, I've worked with Sun several times. They really do work hard to be helpful, but they are also very methodical about it. For example, when the primary maintainer of a Linux distribution and I got in an argument about whether or no
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Linus is right and you are wrong on Java:
1. Sun still retains "control" over Java-the-platform through the JSR/committee process. GPL'ing the reference implementation doesn't affect their control of the trademark.
2. The Microsoft lawsuit was settled for a LONG time before Sun started talking seriously about GPL. In the meantime MS was committed to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather have Linus Torvalds speaking on behalf of the open source community than, say, Richard Stallman or Bruce Perens. The latter two are more than happy to explicitly declare that they're speaking on behalf of all of us, and more often than not they're making embarassing declarations that not all of us want to be associated with. Linus is an engineer; he cuts to the chase an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a bad Linus message (Score:5, Interesting)
Also of note is Theo's de Raadt message in Sun's blog: "Jonathan, I wish the above was true. 15 years ago I was the biggest Sun fan. Today I speak as the project leader for another set of open source projects -- OpenBSD and OpenSSH. OpenSSH will be better known to your audience, as it is what they use daily to connect securely to and from their Solaris (or Linux) machines. OpenSSH killed telnet and rlogin, for those who still remember those mechanisms. We give our software completely freely to the world, without even the standard encumberances people see in the GPL or CDDL. Yet when we turn around and ask Sun to give us documentation for the chips on their machines -- chips Sun themselves designed, not via contractors -- Sun drags their feet. Recently we tried to reopen these 10-year-old repeated requests, and once again nothing positive happened. You may remember, because you and David Yen were in an email conversation with us. Lots of nice open words were exchanged, but no action. However, let me give an example of the duplicity of Sun. (I wish I could use a lighter word). Two operating systems run on Sun's latest PCI-e based (smallish) Ultrasparc-III machines, the v215/v245 -- Solaris and OpenBSD. The latter system runs on those machines because the code to support the non-processor chips on the board had to be written after painstaking reverse engineering, because Sun refuses to make available documentation for how these chips are programmed. Now we will readily admit that not every programmer in the world needs to know how to program these chips. But does every programmer in the world need to know how to program every little detail on Sun's processors, in system mode? Sun gets great press out of UltraSPARC being all "open", but what use is supervisor-mode documentation when the rest of the chips that the supervisor-mode code has to communicate with are entirely undocumented??? The press does not spot this problem, but Jonathan, you should clearly understand this is a fallacy. There are two operating systems which surprisingly do not run on the Sun v215/v245 -- Linux and OpenSolaris. OpenSolaris?? Yes -- Sun isn't even open enough to give the OpenSolaris community enough documentation to support their new machines. So I think that Linus is right, and Sun has a long road ahead."
I tend to listen to Theo's opinion carefully on this subjects. I'm an "FSF fanboy" to the bone, card carrying and all, which curiously is one of the reasons I tend to view Theo's opinion on this subjects with interest, more so than Linus. When it's not a GPL vs BSD thing (which is a fait-diver discussion in my sense of priorities) the fact remains that he seems to see the problems with licencing with a greater depth and in general is more "idealistic" than "pragmatic".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. Hell must've frozen over...
communities what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It remains to see who participates and the nature of the co-operation. Sun contributing Java, even for cynical reasons, says more about Open Source as an evolving business model than a fracturing community.
And so what if it fractures anyway, maybe that makes software evolve in a more "natural" way.
Sun and Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
To my mind, the relationship between Sun and Open Source has always been coloured by Sun's Big Thing: Java.
As a development platform, Java only had one new thing to offer. Perl, Python, PHP, C et al. are "write once, run anywhere" languages, as long as you publish the source. Sun's contribution is a language that supports "write once, run anywhere" without publishing the source.
In other words, Sun's most interesting contribution to the software industry is a powerful (if painful to use) tool for distributing proprietary closed source applications.
I keep wondering whether they just stumbled into this or whether it was a strategic move. In either case, it's hardly a testimonial to Sun's support of Open Source.
Re:Sun and Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Controversial ??? HOW ? (Score:3, Insightful)
- Sun says it'll do A
- Linus says that based on Sun history he is sceptical that they will actually do A, and thinks that they say A but will do something like it, but not completely
- Then he says he thinks Sun should be commended for the things they did.
That's not a war. That is just an opinion that isn't even remotely controversial.
And then someone replies...
ZFS everywhere? Doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Communities EVOLVE.
This is what Theo de Raadt has to say about it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linus, please join us in the here and now.... (Score:4, Insightful)
What? What the hell are you talking about?
"runs the same speed" regardless of "load"? Could you please use some technical terms here? x86 instructions complete in a given number of cycles (barring branch misprediction, to which SPARC is not immune) so intel/AMD chips also always run at the same speed (barring throttling.)
Well, that's fair - so has everyone else. (Some people are simply willing to overlook them)
*cough*bullshit*cough* As a newborn Sun employee, Murdock is thinking about making Solaris more Linux-like [zdnet.com]. "When people say Linux what do they mean? Linux is a kernel. Cool apps are not written to the kernel. The OS powers higher levels of the stack. What we want is an open OS platform and to make sure that the existing skill sets and knowledge and training investments are leveraged. We don't want to make them learn a new product or rip and replace," Murdock said. "You can make a real argument that Solaris innovated more than Linux in the last few years--such as DTrace and ZFS--but usability stands in the way of appreciating that," Murdock said. "Part of what we are working on is closing the usability gap so that it doesn't stand in the way." (next para, emphasis mine:) "There is no reason we can't make Solaris look and feel more like Linux," he continued. "There are a couple of ways we could do it. We could stick a penguin on it or take a Linux distribution and put a Solaris kernel in it. There are a few Solaris-based distros that have done that. Personally, as the person charting the course and looking at the strategy question, it becomes how to keep the competitive differentiation of Solaris while closing the usability gap."
Perhaps you should try to be informed before you attempt to refute my statements? Especially since you're wrong.
Also, it's worth noting that there's Sun SPARC-based hardware that OpenSolaris doesn't run on, because Sun won't give out sufficient specifications. Theo's way of putting it [kerneltrap.org] was "Sun released CPU docs, but that's useless. It is kind of like trying to fix a car engine with the owner's manual. The rest of the hardware is not documented."
Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If, down the road, the GPL3 is determined to be a good thing, then it might be worth the enormous effort required to (1) get permission the change the license from all the copyright owners we can find, (2) replace code that is owned by coders we couldn't find or wouldn't give permission, and (3) try to do all this without detracting from the real work of developing the kernel.
It's possi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for your answer. I think we are in the same page, as to what will happen if Sun releases ZFS under GPLv3. Minor nitpick: when I said Sun would be "forfeiting" the patents, I was just thinking about Sun losing that advantage over Linux, their main competitor. You know, what you referred to as the "main differentiator" (which btw I think it's a bit of an overstatement of the benefits of ZFS, but that's beside the point).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for binary compatibility, all major distributions support backwards compatibility for different versions of major standard libraries. If it's really an issue, just ship your own shared libraries or link statically.
I don't think anybody has numbers to back up claims about stability. As a nearly 20 year SunOS/Solaris user, I have to say, I have no confidence in Sun's ability to maintain data integrity,