4 ms·

I suspect "Just ignore the licences and focus on the technology" is not going to fly with enterprise customers.

VonGuard 11y ago
Totally correct. However, it may fly just fine with Ubuntu's "just install a damn Linux and get the app online" crowd. Ubuntu makes Linux easy to install and maintain, and that could be enough for some users. They only need one or two giant apps to grow here in order for it to be called a success.
jra_samba 11y ago
Yep. It's all fun and games until the lawsuits start :-). I don't understand people like this. If they were advocating using pirate copies of Microsoft Windows or other proprietary software, would they be saying "ignore Microsoft legal department and focus on how cool it is that I get a free copy of Windows ? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
- adamleventhal 11y ago
  Lots of people do exactly that. In fact, many companies even use software for which the licenses have lapsed or they never owned licenses in the first place. Sometimes it's by accident; in other cases it's a knowing acceptance of risk.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I don't think that's a relevant comparison at all. What we have here is two open source technologies that have traditionally been kept from being used together because of specific clauses in their licenses, and some lawyers who have looked at it and are vouching that it's not a problem. That's far from ignoring the proprietary closed source, for-profit licensing of a product where it's very clear cut. The lawyers may be wrong, and it's probably a good idea for enterprise customers to steer clear, but the whole point is that there is some valid contention over whether the technologies can be used together. There is not valid contention over whether you can use Windows without a license.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  I think it's safe to say there's a world of difference between license violations for a piece of software that's closed source, proprietary and sold for profit and a license incompatibility on two open source projects caused by a single clause in licenses that are otherwise compatible. You may have the chops and cred to call someone stupid that wrote dtrace but I'd certainly hesitate before doing so myself.
  - jra_samba 11y ago
    People can be very smart technically, yet legally very naive. This is a very naive legal position, which I certainly feel justified in calling "stupid, stupid, stupid".
    - brazzledazzle 11y ago
      Certainly if I was a lawyer I'd probably feel comfortable using an insult like "stupid" to describe a legal position but I'm not. You might be, I don't know. But it's still unnecessarily negative.
adamleventhal 11y ago
"As with anything, evaluate the technology, evaluate the risks, and move on." I've been selling to enterprise customers for a little while now. All technology has risk, new technology and the status quo alike. Companies weigh those risks against the expected benefits. Some folks will obviously avoid the brouhaha completely; it makes sense. Others will decide that the benefits outweigh the risk; there's nothing less comprehensible about that decision.
_ph_ 11y ago
No, the licenses are not ignored. Both, the GPL and the CDDL require the source available for any copy of the resulting program distributed. In that spirit, there is no license violation. There is some disagreement to which extend linking programs under those licenses is technically possible. But the verdict is still out, whether this is a problem at all. But for the goals both licenses aim for - open source which stay open source, is not violated. This is not a company shipping a closed source executable based on modified sources. They are just shipping precompiled binaries based on available sources.
yarrel 11y ago
The comments agree - http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/03/07/big-news-for-zfs-on-linux/#comment-55740 http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/03/07/big-news-for-zfs-on-l...

Totally correct. However, it may fly just fine with Ubuntu's "just install a damn Linux and get the app online" crowd. Ubuntu makes Linux easy to install and maintain, and that could be enough for some users. They only need one or two giant apps to grow here in order for it to be called a success.

jra_samba 11y ago

Yep. It's all fun and games until the lawsuits start :-). I don't understand people like this. If they were advocating using pirate copies of Microsoft Windows or other proprietary software, would they be saying "ignore Microsoft legal department and focus on how cool it is that I get a free copy of Windows ? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

adamleventhal 11y ago
Lots of people do exactly that. In fact, many companies even use software for which the licenses have lapsed or they never owned licenses in the first place. Sometimes it's by accident; in other cases it's a knowing acceptance of risk.
kbenson 11y ago
I don't think that's a relevant comparison at all. What we have here is two open source technologies that have traditionally been kept from being used together because of specific clauses in their licenses, and some lawyers who have looked at it and are vouching that it's not a problem. That's far from ignoring the proprietary closed source, for-profit licensing of a product where it's very clear cut. The lawyers may be wrong, and it's probably a good idea for enterprise customers to steer clear, but the whole point is that there is some valid contention over whether the technologies can be used together. There is not valid contention over whether you can use Windows without a license.
brazzledazzle 11y ago
I think it's safe to say there's a world of difference between license violations for a piece of software that's closed source, proprietary and sold for profit and a license incompatibility on two open source projects caused by a single clause in licenses that are otherwise compatible. You may have the chops and cred to call someone stupid that wrote dtrace but I'd certainly hesitate before doing so myself.
- jra_samba 11y ago
  People can be very smart technically, yet legally very naive. This is a very naive legal position, which I certainly feel justified in calling "stupid, stupid, stupid".
  - brazzledazzle 11y ago
    Certainly if I was a lawyer I'd probably feel comfortable using an insult like "stupid" to describe a legal position but I'm not. You might be, I don't know. But it's still unnecessarily negative.

adamleventhal 11y ago

"As with anything, evaluate the technology, evaluate the risks, and move on." I've been selling to enterprise customers for a little while now. All technology has risk, new technology and the status quo alike. Companies weigh those risks against the expected benefits. Some folks will obviously avoid the brouhaha completely; it makes sense. Others will decide that the benefits outweigh the risk; there's nothing less comprehensible about that decision.

_ph_ 11y ago

No, the licenses are not ignored. Both, the GPL and the CDDL require the source available for any copy of the resulting program distributed. In that spirit, there is no license violation. There is some disagreement to which extend linking programs under those licenses is technically possible. But the verdict is still out, whether this is a problem at all. But for the goals both licenses aim for - open source which stay open source, is not violated. This is not a company shipping a closed source executable based on modified sources. They are just shipping precompiled binaries based on available sources.

yarrel 11y ago

The comments agree - http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/03/07/big-news-for-zfs-on-linux/#comment-55740 http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/03/07/big-news-for-zfs-on-l...