Torvalds vs Schwartz GPL Wars 335
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."
It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's flame time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called "politics".
Linus is right (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't firmly commit to anything, but merely spend a certain amount of time chasing whichever particular ambulance they think is hot with their customer base at a given moment. When the wind changes, they go off in a different direction.
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: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.
Re:License changes take a loooong time (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 paraphrase: "Am I cynical? Yes. Do I expect people to act in their own interests? Hell yes! That's how things are _supposed_ to happen. I'm not at all berating Linus, what I'm trying to do here is to wake people up who seem to be living in some dream-world where Linus wants to help people.
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.
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
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.
Re:oh man (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Linus needs to stop speaking for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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...
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.
Re:Sun and Open Source (Score:1, Insightful)
People don't like java because it's too verbose and requires far more typing than other languages. Java is far more long winded than COBOL ever was.
ZFS everywhere? Doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Communities EVOLVE.
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.
Re:Linus needs to stop speaking for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this going to hurt? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Last time Linus had wars against GNOME (Score:2, Insightful)
What does he plan now? just an E-Mail? what about something creative like last time?
Re:It's flame time (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:To be fair... (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 with a blog post explaining why things are still coming in the future, no matter how good the reasons.
Re:Linux and GPL3? (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).
Right. But that's no different than the CDDL. Right now, to use ZFS you have to be able to glue a chunk of CDDL code into your project. Linux can't use it because of the GPL (any version). Shouldn't we, by your reasoning, say that that's Linus' fault for choosing the GPL instead of something else?
Anyway, my point is, it was Sun who chose to license it in a way that Linux couldn't touch it. And if they release it under GPLv3 (big if, IMO), that will also be Sun's choice. Now, you may take the charitative view and say that they had to do it that way, or that being incompatible with Linux is an unfortunate, unintended consequence. Me? Well... I guess I've just become too cynical in my old age.
Well, that's your perception. The short-sighted mistake, I mean. To me, it was a sensible choice. If you care about how people use your code, then you don't leave a backdoor for third parties to relicense your code as they see fit. Not even the FSF.
In fact, and this will sound trollish, and I do apologise for that, but after reading the GPLv3, particularly the early drafts, I have to qualify: especially not the FSF.
Oh and btw, I think BK was also a sensible choice at the time. And the offspring of that "fiasco", namely git, more than compensates for everything. IMO of course.
I'm really sorry for being difficult, but no, I would not agree. C'mon, I keep reading GPLv3 advocates saying as much: GPLv2 is not going anywhere, you are as free to use it as you are to choose GPLv3. Now, regardless of how things got the way they are, or whose "fault" was it, Linux is GPLv2, and it doesn't seem likely that that will change anytime soon. Sun can choose GPLv2 if they want. In fact, I think there's a good chance they'll do precisely that, just so they can use the drivers.
I just read notamisfit's reply to my post. He's right, BSD is pretty much free to use it under the CDDL, as is that guy doing the FUSE port. My mistake.
But you're right too, if Sun does that, Linux will not benefit. In fact, unless Sun allows GPLv2, Linux is pretty much out of luck, and the patents ensure that it will stay out of luck. Another unintended consequence, perhaps.
Re:Sun and Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)