HP Calls For Sun and IBM to Remove OS Licenses 424
Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that in order to help nudge Linux and open source
software further into the enterprise, a vice president at Hewlett-Packard Co yesterday
called on rivals IBM Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc to invalidate their open-source
software licenses in favor of a free licensing model. During his keynote at the LinuxWorld
Conference in San Francisco yesterday, HP's vice president of open source and NonStop
Enterprise Martin Fink commended the Open
Source Initiative on setting up new rules to limit the growth of open-source licenses." From the article: "He asked IBM to deprecate its open-source license and instead put it under the General Public License, the most popular license for free software that gives users the freedom run the program for any purpose, to study how it works, to modify and improve it and distribute copies. In contrast, an open-source license, like IBM's, is copyrighted. Fink also called on Sun Microsystems to deprecate its Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which applies to OpenSolaris, GlassFish and JWSDP, and to re-license Solaris 10 under the General Public License, which drew the crowd's applause."
A lot of hot air (Score:4, Interesting)
(first post?)
Pot calling Kettle... (Score:5, Interesting)
My company that just purchased 3 computers from HP. There was a total of 5 dual core CPUs. We had to purchase 10 licences for HP-UX 11.11. Utilities that were an extra charge had to be purchased on a per CPU basis as well. A utility that cost $300 ended up costing $3000 even if it was only used on one machine. And they have the nerve to tell other companies to make their licences free???
HP, if you want others to change their licences, lead by example.
Easy to ask IBM and SUN to change licenses. (Score:1, Interesting)
HPUX source code going to be released under any kind of license soon?
Pure bullshit postering imho.
Re:Fink confused on licenses (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no idea how Sun ended up hated by Slashdot. They sell Linux, they open-sourced the Solaris kernel, they have cooperated with OSS operating systems to get them running on their hardware. Lets not forget a huge donation in the form of buying StarOffice and immediately open-sourcing it. The completely open and royalty-free SPARC architecture (as opposed to the far-from-open PPC). Few companies have done more.
There have been some back and forth on how they perceive Linux, but considering that Linux has been eating Sun's marketshare quickly the last decade they sure seem to have a very good relationship with Linux and related technologies.
Re:Pot calling Kettle... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pot calling Kettle... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I did. But what I don't know is what Sun's contract language with AT&T/Novell/SCO states they can and can't do with it. SCO specifically stated that Sun was in the clear, which implies that they have a different contract term from the other SVR4 licensees. NB: I am not speaking from knowledge here - just pure speculation.
--Ng
Re:s/LGPL/BSD/ (Score:3, Interesting)
When I write code, I want as many people as possible to be able to use it, so I choose the BSD license[1]. If someone makes a closed-source product out of it then their customers will benefit from using my code (which will be tested by both my users and the company in question, so should be more stable than if the company had re-invented the wheel) at the expense of freedom (largely from vendor lock-in. I don't consider this trade-off to be worthwhile (I live more in the Free Software than the Open Source camp), but if other people do then that's up to them.
[1] I'm also egocentric, so I pick a license which requires attribution.
Re:Don't Forget Apple's APSL! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:s/GPL/BSD/ (Score:2, Interesting)
GPL = Greater freedom for the Community
Being an Anarcho -Syndicalist [wikipedia.org] after flirting with such ideas as Anarcho-Individualism [wikipedia.org].
I chose Chomsky [zmag.org] over Peacock [libertarian.co.uk].
Re:s/GPL/BSD/ (Score:2, Interesting)
Not at all. Perhaps the value comes from spending time with the code, not from the actual code itself.
A BSD-licensed project is shouting into vacuum - nobody but other altruists will ever publish improvements.
And your point is? So what? Real altruism has to start somewhere and it doesn't start with the GPL. Forced altruism is not altruism.
GPL means that others who use the code are required to be as generous as you were.
Required to be generous? Being generous should never be required. One should be generous because one wants to be generous or because one wants to contribute. Forcing people to be generous will freely make them assholes.
The BSD License values the individual's achievements, but doesn't require anyone else to if they don't want to. The GPL values the group contribution to the detriment of the individual members.
Which one is more free?
GPL and BSD Good for Companies (Score:2, Interesting)
But another aspect of open source is to have a pool of shared code, usually infrastructure-type stuff -- this is what the GPL is good for. In this case, a company's main product isn't this code -- this code just helps prop up their main product. Here is where the GPL shines in business: it enforces a "neutral zone" between companies, so that all infrastructural changes be open to everyone and uncooptable.
Ironically, the rise of this common infrastructure (mostly in the form of GNU/Linux and its related operating system software) probably wouldn't have happened had it not been for Microsoft. As they have spread and assimilated company after company, taking advantage of the real need for integation in the computer world, the only real way for the rest of the industry to stay competitive with them has been to pool resources.
The GPL just protects that treaty. But like I said, I suspect that it will only remain neccessary if either the GPL pool becomes a Microsoft-like force unto itself, or else Microsoft itself stays strong enough to require the GPL pool to counterbalance it.