Hi All, I have a few (3) Questions at the bottom, for you opensolaris developers, et all. But, first of all, thanks for OpenSolaris ! it works great (now, to get Mplayer, and DVD:Rip goin' :) yup, its now workin'... beuuuutiful. mmm, The 4-channel sound is well -not so good? -no decent drivers yet for Audigy2 I guess, ahh well. thats ok for now, my AMD Opteron finally rocks. ok, sorry, this is my first post on opensolaris. back to the subject at hand. I have used (as a personal desktop, and web server,... the (any)BSD's for a little while now. I'm almost completely off Windows(err except for GuildWars damn I can't quit that game...arghh). and having fun presently playin around with OpenSolaris.
I'm posting this thread to get a better understanding of OpenSolaris' licensing issue. see apology for this at bottom as well. But first, I know I'm not wrong in assuming a couple things here. Sun will do whats best for Sun Microsystems -it has to! k we all know that. Sun Microsystem will use OpenSolaris(and its developers) for whatever it needs -and we all know that. I realize that some of us "new-user" base people of OpenSolaris <- yup thats me too! has very little understanding of alot of the legalities/and potential losses involved. (trust me -just keep reading :) I'm not a Sun/OpenSolaris Developer, just a Sysadmin. -not a copyright Lawyer. -here's just a little somethin about me - a user . Umm, I always felt offended about that - ya thats a really old (unix) joke, ahh nevermind. I made my living and bought my house by working very hard for quite a few years as a Sun Systems Administrator ( daily Sysadmin duties from maintaining Oracle database servers, Tape-backup systems, some very rare Sun desktops, but a lot of Sun servers from E450's,... E10K's) for various sweat-shops(err I meant companies), and with all the fun of carrying on-call pagers a zillion hours a week ! :) -I know, its sounds better than my resume. We actually tried (back in 2002) to get RedHat (on a dozen clustered) IBM xServer (x440's) runnin', but (with no thanks to)IBM couldn't supply support (well they blamed Oracle whatever...) and redhat could handle oracle threading(at that time), so I had to switch the 'ole Sun E10K back on -which had paid for itself within 2-weeks. so there you go. Sun support at its best as usual I must assert again. You just can't beat (SHQ) Sun Hardware Quality. Now, in the earlier years, If it wasn't for Free/Open/Net(BSD) - so I could learn Unix, and Linux(so I could learn non-Unix) too, I probably wouldn't have had the chance to work with Sun servers, and thus get a decent "paycheck"--but thats me. Sun has obviously contributed a lot to many NetOS's (as mentioned, Dtrace, nfs, zfs, and the whole (alphabet)fs, except for that in-secure one, jfs. ;) Nevertheless, as one of "many" examples, how much has Apple, ..., or anyone, including Sun Microsystems given to OpenBSD's OpenSSH, ..., for their contributions, just to mention one. Well, apparently not a red cent! and we all know that. No? then just ask Theo. ;) -good luck! -So with a completely "OpenSource"ing of opensolaris(2) such as OpenBSD or, FreeBSD where will that leave the next, or even next generation of (opensolaris)developers and programmers, and sysadmins -and I do mean "Making a de$ent living" - not just making a handful of corporations(yes, Sun)/corporate stock-holders around the world rich beyond dizziness while they(the next gen's) compete for jobs that pay a little more than serving coffee at Tim Hortons - thats from the Great White North, eh. Thats right, but if there's no end-user, there's no developer(s) !, ... Well, times are a changin' my friends, the cats now outta the bag. We all "steal" from each other. -and we really do know that too. Thats been the art, and beauty of Unix since the beginning of time, as it always, welll was, i guess. Be Very careful here, 'cause its way too late, and dangerous to even attempt an even "slightly" closed NetOS now of any kind. And yes, you can smell the likes of that comin' from the camps of IBM(redhat) and Novell(suse), ... I think OpenSolaris should follow a very similar completely open BSD-like, and maybe even more(no strings attached), license. -its a "lot" of work but (hopefully) the whole world should be your user-base. Might as well let the whole "Sun" shine in. -get in the Ring babies. -Sun Microsystems will(and I don't mean should) definitley have to reach deep into their coporate pockets for a few years to see the fruitions of this come out. -And obviously If the Sun "quality" suffers -then all bets are off and the race is over. what then ? the headlines read "Jan.6, 2009 IBM merges with Sun, Bill Gates to overseer merger" yep, now that is scary, eh? Its not a Future shock, but thats what i see when, as you say, in the re:[GPLv3] thread, ... what if opensolaris gets upto x100, or x10000000... users. -Its obvious from the reads, that you as Sun(err opensolaris) developers are being challeged and thats pretty well all of it. So wtf is new. Did my job as it had, not depend on my past proprietary Sun knowledge/training ? -you're damn right it did and it paid alot more than any WinNT admin made! ? yup, thats what I thought too. And that was then, but today, a few months down the road, after I cross-train and share the wealth/knowledge, I might just get replaced by Ragi in some phone support centre in KaZaa-istan ? unfortunatley there is no "in-between" here. at worst, I might a get free trip out of it. ... I feel some serious questions: 1./ So, can you, as developers, ... of "opensolaris" simply not make your own Open License ? instead of just GeePLvx, and/or CDDL, ... why not? 2./ here's a more important dilemma. "Drivers", drivers, and more drivers. Go forth not into this world my son without (cab)Drivers, :) I'll say it again, 'cause even all the BSD's are always gettin' "burnt" without enough of these "user" enticers. So Is there a heavily consorted development team to go after the likes of "ATI",...? -shame on ATI over these little important things, but ATI, and Nvidia is all the (computer)video world use. -I would like to add thanyou to Nvidia for there development support (I meant their drivers). 3./ can someone (and again, from the various reads here its obvious, many of you are gifted with the knowledge to generously) furnish a condensed lay-persons explanation, and effects thereof, of CDDL, versus GpLv3, versus CDDL here for any interested new-user's ? hey thanks guys for your patience, and I really didn't start this new thread for the sake of sewing, I'm slowly trying to understand this "open"ness again, 'cause I never really paid attention to it before, and I should apologize (atleast to myself) for that. Its the rest of the world that won't be so forgiving, so tread lightly my friends, "...the whole world is watching..." above all, keep an OpenHeart, and welcome to the OpenSource world. :-) Richard. Rick Nekus [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
