This chain of what-if?s can end here. In the CDDL, like the MPL that it was modeled after, forward compatibility is not opt-in—unlike the GPL, where you explic

This chain of what-if?s can end here. In the CDDL, like the MPL that it was modeled after, forward compatibility is not opt-in—unlike the GPL, where you explicitly have to state that it's under any later version if you want to allow for that. (The CDDL does allow you restrict the code to a specific version, but you have to explicitly opt out.) The CDDL is at 1.0. Sun (Oracle) is the license steward. If they publish CDDL 1.1 tomorrow, and it says you can use the software under the terms of the MIT License, then every CDDL project in existence that didn't explicitly opt out will be available under very permissive terms. That's a whole lot easier than relicensing the kernel.