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Which also exists in CDDL code. Viral copyright makes it real difficult to share things if various parties have different ideas as to how to best require others

Which also exists in CDDL code. Viral copyright makes it real difficult to share things if various parties have different ideas as to how to best require others to share files.

jordigh 12y ago
The comparison at hand is with DTrace, which has afaik only Oracle as the copyright holder, so they could change the license if they wanted to. CDDL is a bit weird. It's a free license that has a pointless restriction merely in order to make it GPL incompatible. Why people want to make things deliberately GPL incompatible is beyond me.
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  I'm looking through the source I have for DTrace, and there is code written by folks other than Oracle, so changing the license is more difficult than just that. Regarding the GPL, one must ask at the same time why the GPL makes itself deliberately incompatible with four-clause BSD code, or other Free licenses that predated the GPL. Viral licensing just leads to petty fiefdoms and precludes the very sharing they claim to protect.
  - intslack 12y ago
    oh boy, another GPL debate! phk was right, seems we never get tired of this stupid shit. It didn't make itself "deliberately incompatible" with all free licenses before it, for example MIT/X11 is definitely compatible. Why is the original BSD license singled out? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html Many people besides you believe proprietary software is harmful enough to enact defense mechanisms when proprietary software vendors harm the user and lock down free software into their products.
    - jordigh 12y ago
      > oh boy, another GPL debate! phk was right, seems we never get tired of this stupid shit. Well, we're in a thread in an article about the GPL, what did you expect? :-)
    - Sanddancer 12y ago
      I singled out the original BSD license because it was extant and the GPL was not compatible with it. Such clauses are pretty common in the software world and give credit where credit's due; hell, Microsoft has no problem with it, why does it bind the panties of the average GPL supporter so much? Furthermore, I'd argue that a lot of those defense mechanisms that copyleft supporters claim are necessary cause much more harm to Free Software than they do to proprietary software. The ability to use GCC for static analysis, for example, was muddied for many years by the GCC team's unwillingness to create a suitable API out of fear that it would become easier for proprietary software teams to use GCC without contributing. Meanwhile, proprietary compiler chains, like those Microsoft provided, were easily able to create those same tools because they were not driven by such fears. Additionally, you have statements from people like RMS trying to memory hole software ( http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html ) that doesn't agree with his political views. While the goals may be noble, the route the free software community has chosen to get there has devolved into stubbornness and childishness to the detriment of everyone.
  - Crito 12y ago
    > I'm looking through the source I have for DTrace, and there is code written by folks other than Oracle, That is irrelevant if DTrace used copyright assignment to ensure that there was always one copyright holder, regardless of the number or affiliations of contributors. I honestly don't know if they did or not, but from what I've heard in this thread it sounds like they did.
  - justincormack 12y ago
    I think development has moved away from Oracle now partly, but at one point there was a Sun/Oracle only version. This piece [0] argues that the reason for not dual licensing it was that there might be GPL only contributions and then eventually a GPL fork, which is not that unlikely given the larger size of Linux vs VSD+Solaris. Same with ZFS I guess, even if Oracle mostly sponsored btrfs. [0] https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/dtrace_knockoffs https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/dtrace_knockoffs
rmc 12y ago
I thought only Oracle was the copyright holder of DTrace? Are there individual people who have some copyrighted chunk of DTrace?
- rincebrain 12y ago
  On the Oracle-specific source tree of DTrace, perhaps. On the OSS derivative codebases...not so much.
  - rmc 12y ago
    So, Oracle could GPL their copy of DTrace then? Simples.

Which also exists in CDDL code. Viral copyright makes it real difficult to share things if various parties have different ideas as to how to best require others to share files.

jordigh 12y ago

The comparison at hand is with DTrace, which has afaik only Oracle as the copyright holder, so they could change the license if they wanted to. CDDL is a bit weird. It's a free license that has a pointless restriction merely in order to make it GPL incompatible. Why people want to make things deliberately GPL incompatible is beyond me.

Sanddancer 12y ago
I'm looking through the source I have for DTrace, and there is code written by folks other than Oracle, so changing the license is more difficult than just that. Regarding the GPL, one must ask at the same time why the GPL makes itself deliberately incompatible with four-clause BSD code, or other Free licenses that predated the GPL. Viral licensing just leads to petty fiefdoms and precludes the very sharing they claim to protect.
- intslack 12y ago
  oh boy, another GPL debate! phk was right, seems we never get tired of this stupid shit. It didn't make itself "deliberately incompatible" with all free licenses before it, for example MIT/X11 is definitely compatible. Why is the original BSD license singled out? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html Many people besides you believe proprietary software is harmful enough to enact defense mechanisms when proprietary software vendors harm the user and lock down free software into their products.
  - jordigh 12y ago
    > oh boy, another GPL debate! phk was right, seems we never get tired of this stupid shit. Well, we're in a thread in an article about the GPL, what did you expect? :-)
  - Sanddancer 12y ago
    I singled out the original BSD license because it was extant and the GPL was not compatible with it. Such clauses are pretty common in the software world and give credit where credit's due; hell, Microsoft has no problem with it, why does it bind the panties of the average GPL supporter so much? Furthermore, I'd argue that a lot of those defense mechanisms that copyleft supporters claim are necessary cause much more harm to Free Software than they do to proprietary software. The ability to use GCC for static analysis, for example, was muddied for many years by the GCC team's unwillingness to create a suitable API out of fear that it would become easier for proprietary software teams to use GCC without contributing. Meanwhile, proprietary compiler chains, like those Microsoft provided, were easily able to create those same tools because they were not driven by such fears. Additionally, you have statements from people like RMS trying to memory hole software ( http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2001-02/msg00895.html ) that doesn't agree with his political views. While the goals may be noble, the route the free software community has chosen to get there has devolved into stubbornness and childishness to the detriment of everyone.
- Crito 12y ago
  > I'm looking through the source I have for DTrace, and there is code written by folks other than Oracle, That is irrelevant if DTrace used copyright assignment to ensure that there was always one copyright holder, regardless of the number or affiliations of contributors. I honestly don't know if they did or not, but from what I've heard in this thread it sounds like they did.
- justincormack 12y ago
  I think development has moved away from Oracle now partly, but at one point there was a Sun/Oracle only version. This piece [0] argues that the reason for not dual licensing it was that there might be GPL only contributions and then eventually a GPL fork, which is not that unlikely given the larger size of Linux vs VSD+Solaris. Same with ZFS I guess, even if Oracle mostly sponsored btrfs. [0] https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/dtrace_knockoffs https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/dtrace_knockoffs

rmc 12y ago

I thought only Oracle was the copyright holder of DTrace? Are there individual people who have some copyrighted chunk of DTrace?

rincebrain 12y ago
On the Oracle-specific source tree of DTrace, perhaps. On the OSS derivative codebases...not so much.
- rmc 12y ago
  So, Oracle could GPL their copy of DTrace then? Simples.