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As far as I know, Oracle has not made any SPARC intellectual property available since the acquisition of Sun. The T1 and T2 lines were emphatically Sun-era pro

by jclulow 11y ago

As far as I know, Oracle has not made any SPARC intellectual property available since the acquisition of Sun. The T1 and T2 lines were emphatically Sun-era products.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
They stay on Slashdot and in my news feed. Here's a few from Oracle and one from Fujitsu: Oracle T4 http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-t4-announcement-494846.html http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-t4-announc... Oracle M6 http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-m6/index.html http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-m6/index.h... Oracle M7 https://blogs.oracle.com/rajadurai/entry/sparc_m7_chip_32_cores https://blogs.oracle.com/rajadurai/entry/sparc_m7_chip_32_co... Fujitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC64_VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC64_VI
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Yes, new SPACE processors are coming out. The chips are being made available but the intellectual property isn't.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's true. I'm also against buying Oracle's I.P. because they're too scheming and sue-happy. I'm listing those to show SPARC ISA has a series of implementations competitive with x86 on the high-end. It's actively developed and badass rather than dead. That's all.
valarauca1 11y ago
So if API's are copyright-able. And SPARC T1/T2 are GPL CopyLeft. Shouldn't Oracle have to open source T3/T4/T5/M7 processors also? (No I don't have the money required to sue Oracle and keep this suit open for the 2 decades settlement will take).
- lambertsimnel 11y ago
  If all of the copyright holders agreed, I think they they could relicense under any licence. This would be especially straightforward for any revision for which Oracle is the sole copyright holder.
- nkurz 11y ago
  No, that's not how open-source licensing usually works. Assuming Oracle own all the IP rights (having purchased them from Sun), they aren't bound by the terms of the GPL. The GPL grants certain permissions to others if they comply with its terms, but the person who offers the license doesn't lose any rights they already have. They have no obligation to keep successive generations of derivative products open source.
  - moefh 11y ago
    True, that's even spelled out in the GPL itself (that's from GPL 2, but GPL 3 has similar content in section 9): > 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License [...] The copyright owner obviously doesn't need the license to have permission to modify the code, so they're not bound by it.

by jclulow 11y ago

As far as I know, Oracle has not made any SPARC intellectual property available since the acquisition of Sun. The T1 and T2 lines were emphatically Sun-era products.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

They stay on Slashdot and in my news feed. Here's a few from Oracle and one from Fujitsu: Oracle T4 http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-t4-announcement-494846.html http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-t4-announc... Oracle M6 http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-m6/index.html http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-m6/index.h... Oracle M7 https://blogs.oracle.com/rajadurai/entry/sparc_m7_chip_32_cores https://blogs.oracle.com/rajadurai/entry/sparc_m7_chip_32_co... Fujitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC64_VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC64_VI

Symmetry 11y ago
Yes, new SPACE processors are coming out. The chips are being made available but the intellectual property isn't.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  That's true. I'm also against buying Oracle's I.P. because they're too scheming and sue-happy. I'm listing those to show SPARC ISA has a series of implementations competitive with x86 on the high-end. It's actively developed and badass rather than dead. That's all.

valarauca1 11y ago

So if API's are copyright-able. And SPARC T1/T2 are GPL CopyLeft. Shouldn't Oracle have to open source T3/T4/T5/M7 processors also? (No I don't have the money required to sue Oracle and keep this suit open for the 2 decades settlement will take).

lambertsimnel 11y ago
If all of the copyright holders agreed, I think they they could relicense under any licence. This would be especially straightforward for any revision for which Oracle is the sole copyright holder.
nkurz 11y ago
No, that's not how open-source licensing usually works. Assuming Oracle own all the IP rights (having purchased them from Sun), they aren't bound by the terms of the GPL. The GPL grants certain permissions to others if they comply with its terms, but the person who offers the license doesn't lose any rights they already have. They have no obligation to keep successive generations of derivative products open source.
- moefh 11y ago
  True, that's even spelled out in the GPL itself (that's from GPL 2, but GPL 3 has similar content in section 9): > 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License [...] The copyright owner obviously doesn't need the license to have permission to modify the code, so they're not bound by it.