But when I’m consulting at a company, and a software company at that, I’m sorry, but I cannot tell them that anything they program, they’d have to give the source code to.

GPL is way too viral.. I now recommend things with BSD licenses. The whole “If it’s BSD and not GPL, they will be source code hords, and never release source!!” Errr.. I have netbsd, freebsd, openbsd, postgres code.. BSD allows the OPTION of selling enhancements without having to go to the patent office. GPL doesn’t.

I personally think the concept of good userland from Debian and a Solaris Core to be a great concept.

GPL is about FREEDOM so they say, but take a look, and you will find that GPL is the one who restricts what everybody can and can’t do with THEIR code..

You write the code, but “All your source are belong to us”. That should be the GPL motto..

A lawyer once tried to get me to explain GPL to him. At the end, he asked me “So you are telling me, GPL proponents are a bunch of freeloaders basically right?” WOW, that was a difficult statement to say no to..

Sun? You mean the Nexenta people I think.. And even then, this is a project using the Solaris kernel and a Debian userland. So if anything, this is a project that is rallying behind and contributing to the Debian community.

“What has Sun given to the Linux community? It’s very easy to setup a 1 way license that can leach off the other camp; but is it right?”

Sun has actually contributed quite a bit to the OSS community at large. And much of Linux was at least inspired by Solaris, so in a way they have contributed indirectly to Linux by simply existing and having a great kernel.

Really, who cares if the OS is using an OpenSolaris, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. kernel?? More choices of Open Source kernels can only be a good thing.

What has Sun given to the Linux community? It’s very easy to setup a 1 way license that can leach off the other camp; but is it right?

No you don’t need a lawyer’s input to have an opinion on this but you do need a lawyer’s input to have an intelligent opinion on it.

I am not a lawyer but have used OSS from sunfreeware for years and look forward to more excellent releases from gnusolaris.

Far from damaging the OSS movement this is a great step ahead. Up to now you’ve had just a few choices for the underlying kernel (Linux or *BSD, etc). Now you have a robust entry on top of which you can run all the great GNU software.

Therefore I think that the GPL, as far as it differs from the LGPL, is not about providing more freedom, but about keeping certain players out of the game alltogether. Unfortunately, in the time since the article was written (1999), the scope of parties excluded from using GPL software has expanded. Now it’s not only proprietary software, but also GPL-incompatible OSS licenses.

Ian, you’re asking not to interpret the GPL as literally as one could. This seems sensible, as there is clearly no damage done by what Nexenta is doing. But this gives the licensee no legal certainty. Every single copyright holder could come up and sue, even if the majority of the community thinks that they should not. If individual copyrights have not been transferred to an organization like FSF, that would be every single contributor.

If I look at recent judgement in patent matters, everything seems to be possible once IP matters are taken to court. I for my part would not want to use GPL software in a way that is not clearly allowed by the license, without written permission by every single copyright holder.

Personally, I think that every software author has the right to use whatever OSS license they like for their software. There will always be valid reasons for NOT using the GPL or any GPL-compatible license. Even if you disagree, if you think that people using incompatible licenses are just suffering the consequences of their own wrong decisions–is it not often third parties who suffer the consequences of not being able to merge to pieces of OSS software? I think that’s the case with Nexenta, and with everyone who would like to use the resulting Solaris/Debian system.

Wouldn’t license compatibility be much less of a problem, if any, if licenses would only restrict the use of the original module, and not extend to the concept of “combined works”?
And wouldn’t this be sufficient to keep the original work in the free domain, including improved and modified versions?

Yes, this would mean that commercial software could be built on top of GPL software, that exceeds the functionality of the original GPL code. But trying to prevent this always has the potential of backfiring on the OSS community. And turning a blind eye to “friendly violations” does not seem like much of a solution to me.

Secondly the GPL should be less viral, this case is a proof that it is too viral, RMS should have in mind for a third party which is not a copyright holder of any of the work, where the person might have to follow 2 licenses, and the person is just USING GPL software not coding using it.

Thirdly I hate the GPL, I hate capitism, I hate how people can not get along, I hate how people use other people and gaining control over the person’s life in an unfair deal (I hope you see what I mean…). I’ll give an example of my last case in a way you all might understand:
Microsoft has gained power over their users, but are not their users what they want if it threats their chance on making an extra dollar, I call this an unfair deal.

“Case in point: The intent of the GPL is to prohibit derivative works of GPL code from being proprietary, not to prohibit GPL applications from being linked to GPL-incompatible libraries. The former is a goal. The latter is a technicality in pursuit of a goal.”

I’m afraid that is closer to the LGPL. GPL does very much prohibit linking to non-GPL libraries.

“For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.”

“all modules” clearly refers to “all modules of the executable”, which clearly includes all libraries.

The only actual question is whether “unless that component itself accompanies the executable” applies or not. It seems reasonable that Nexenta is producing an operating system that includes kernel AND a lot of GPL’d userspace. In that case, the “unless” applies, and distribution is not permitted.

In general, it’s clear that the GPL only allows GPL’d programs on non-GPL-compatible systems that are distributed separately. ClosedSolaris cannot distribute GNU tools as part of the OS. Nexenta similarly cannot.

And the choice is not Debian’s for that matter. The individual copyright holder decide (or a court), including FSF. Debian has always tried to respect the wishes of the copyright holders, and should do so in this case too.

After all, if Nexenta is breaking the GPL by simply distributing a binary of a GPL program linked against a non-free libc, then every proprietary UNIX vendor under the sun is also breaking the GPL whenever they ship GPL’d software as part of their binary distro. [try to find one that doesn’t!]

Big hint: the FSF doesn’t seem to care about proprietary UNIX vendors, even (koff, spit) SCO doing this, as long as they agree to make the source available. So it’s quite amazing to see Nexenta copping so much flak from people who claim that their motive is to defend the GPL. Perhaps they should have asked for an opinion from the FSF before launching a flame war.

-Jason