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Java Programming

Sun to Release Forte CE Under Mozilla License 95

Posted by Hemos from the must-learn-to-let-it-go dept.
A reader writes "Sun will be releasing the source of their Forte for Java IDE (formerly Netbeans) under the Mozilla license. I believe this would be the first time Sun has released a major product under an approved open source license. "
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Sun to Release Forte CE Under Mozilla License More

Sun to Release Forte CE Under Mozilla License

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  • Sun shines high, high above us (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Thank you Sun! Here again we have a part of our dreams fulfilled. What I am afraid of, though, is a gang of paranoid seekers seeking hindthougts in these releases. The more GPL-license released software the better! The hegemonic years of Microsoft dominance ought to be numbered. Sun, together with IBM, Intel, and others know stand a formidable chance of, of, of regaining distributed control... After the sun has set, the moon rises
  • When people ask what an 'approved' free software license is, I usually send them to the Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org], because they fit my idea of a reasonable set of rules for what a license should say, and not say.
  • From lurking on the tomcat-dev mailing list it sounds like this was an test pilot program. To see if OSS would work for them. It is good that they released NetBeans too. I guess they think the Jakarta project has done well. I think Sun is probably still evaluating this whole Open Source idea. So if you really want them to embrace it help with the Jakarta project or Netbeans and show them it is worth their time and a very good idea. (Hopefully this will eventually lead them to opening java up.)

    --

  • I agree, they *invented* the term "Open Source" to get a less ambigious (and less politically ladden) term for what FSF called "Free Software". When the term started to get diluted, it lost much of its usefullness.

    Allthough I like the political implications of the term "Free Software", I miss being able to say Open Source(TM) when I want to be totally unambigious.
  • Actually Public Domain is a bad idea since it doesn't let the author disclaim liability or protect his good name in any way.

    I.e. If I release foo as Public Domain and you use it improperly to cause massive damage, I can be sued. If you create a broken modification or even a reimplimentation with the same name I look bad and can't do anything but cry fowl on the net.

    This is why 90% of Public Domain software I have seen was produced by the US government. If you have a Million soldiers on call you don't need protection of any kind :).

    The other 10% has fortunately not attracted enough notice to get the authors into trouble. My advise is that if you want to just give stuff away with no strings attached use the new BSD license.
  • out of all the ides i used, netbeans/forte was the absolute WORST! it doesn't let you add code where you want and it's overall the most restrictive. personally, i've given up on ides... even for gui development! jikes and jedit... all i need!

    "The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
  • Why the Linux screenshot has the worst resolution?
    Solaris, Mac and NT all looks really good.
    I think that they(netbeans.com) don't have a
    X11 Linux box with 16bit color.

    Contributions?
  • Yeah, it looks like a steaming turd..
    Your Working Boy,
  • IANESR, but i believe that "approved" would mean it falls under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which i didn't think mozilla's did.
    shows what i know.
  • Forte is the best Java IDE I've used, hands down. It is simply the best environment out there, its completely object oriented, and its a GREAT example of what java is capable of in terms of client side programming. I for one, can't wait to read the code. Great move sun.
  • Who, exactly, approves a license that, by it's very nature, is designed and executed by a community?!
  • Come on! They are a big company with mighty share holders. Big business is about making money for the share holders. What is wrong with that people? Think about it. In this game every trick is played in order to get publicity and to create hype and interest about their products. Who can blame them. Their tricks might be dirty sometimes but can we honestly say that the other big companies out there are playing more nice?

    Don't mean to start a flame war here but let's face the fact that in the real world of commercial software Open Source is not always an option. I honestly don't think most people agree with RMS when he says all software should be freely available. Who would like to release the source to let's say defence systems under GPL. How about the software systems used by the major banks.

    Give Sun a break. Even thought it probably is a completely selfish move in the end the Open Source community benefits from it. One could say it's like a symbioses. They give something to us and they get publicity back. Then the Open Source community get's more publicity because it's accepted by the major companies. It's like a spiral and if they stick to a reckognised lisence like MPL it can't possibly hurt.

  • Would you really want to be defended by "defense" systems the would-be defenders didn't have the source to?

    Defense is one area in which open sourced software is definately not a good idea. Do we really want all the r+d we put into de/offense software to be out in the open? While I personally wouldn't mind having access to all that code, it would defeat its own purpose. This is analgous to building a weapon, or other defense system, and giving the plans away to anybody who asked. The software in question is military in purpose and nature, and therefore could possibly give a military advantage to whomever the "enemy" happens to be at the moment.

    This is not to say that there shouldn't be any opensourcing of any military software. For example, there was a CAD package a few years back called BRL-CAD that wasn't open sourced but was freely available. (though you had to send away for a decryption key, proving that you were a US citizen) But do I want to be defended by software whose source the guy I'm being attacked by doesn't have? Yes!

  • An "approved" Open source license is one that has been approved by the open source initiative, namely by [deleted for karmaic considerations] ESR. Remember, this is the same organization that tried to trademark the term 'open source'.
  • This is a common misconception of the Gnu GPL. The GPL prevents *other* people form releasing binary-only versions w/ proprietary code. Sun can release it under as many licenses as they want to, including closed. An example of this is Perl, which is releasd under two licenses- Artistic and GPL.
  • This is a good move from Sun, I hope they will release StarOffice under the same licence. I believe they also intend to port NFS V4 to linux, and make it Open Source.

    The last big question of course will be what will happen for Java
  • He may be referring to the typo in "sufficiently" in your signature. Not a spelling flame (by me at least), genuinely trying to help :)
  • I think it's time for a better standard. - Something that is TRUELY free.

    What would the conditions be?
  • The major difference between Sun licensing their own products their own way, and your pyramid scheme, as that your scheme hinges upon an act of fraud.

    That's not true. Some pyramid schemes make it quite clear to buyers that they are a massive gamble. They're still illegal (at least in this country), because they cause a large-scale economic mess and not because anyone is being defrauded.


    People are called zealots who call fraud freedom, but then turn around and call freedom exploitation.

    The normal word for that would in fact be "hypocrisy". But it is at least debatable whether exercising an artificial, government-granted monopoly to control an idea is "freedom" rather than "exploitation". It depends upon how you view the situation.
  • This sounds very good. People keep asking and debating how it would be possible to get a license that was quite as 'restrictive' as the GPL can be seen as being so being so unrestrictive. It may sound funny, but the freedom for a company to muck about with something that has been born of open source seems to be the one major thing that is lost in GPLing things...

    Which is not to say I'm not entirely in favour of the GPL - it does seem fairest in the end - but the Mozilla license seems a great stop-gap, and seems to satisfy certain companies flirting with open source!
  • Whoa, got my ass whooped. Didn't realize that the FSF maintains an "approved" license list. However, my statement still stands, don't let the GPL get to your head. And doesn't having a list of "approved" licenses smack of, like, church doctrine or something? Am I a heretic if I don't use an "approved" license. They should change the name to something like, "licenses supported by the FSF" or something.
  • Excuse me, I didn't quite catch that. (The subtlety might be over my head.) Is my quote attributed to the wrong person?
  • I know this is offtopic, and perhaps somebody will moderate this down because of that, or even because of flaming, but ...
    woops, looks like the first five... are bad links to ./
    Of course they are bad links, because the original poster [slashdot.org] just copied+pasted [slashdot.org] the HTML source from the opensource.org page [opensource.org] without thinking.

    <rant>
    I'm really wondering where those four guys (and girls?) left their brain when moderating that one up to score five! Is is so hard just to check a few links before you waste your scarce moderator points? Does that really take so much of your time?
    <rant>

    - Stephan.
    --
    Carpe diem!
  • Maybe I'm getting my history a bit screwed, but Sun, over the years, has released the source for a number of different products. Maybe the liscenses weren't Open Source (tm) Approved, but this was quite some time ago - in the pre-Java days when Sun wasn't the Microsoft-on-Unix company it seems to have turned into.

    Again, my history might be a bit screwed: I'm not sure of the liscence for NFS 1.0, Tcl/Tk-guy might have started that project before joining Sun and the Open Windows/olvwm/XView source I think was released after it lost out to Motif... but I don't think it's accurate to say this is a first for Sun.
  • Public companies, unlike people, have no moral stance, only a financial one - a legal obligation to make as much money as possible.

    Hmmmmm, could you point us to this law? I'm not familiar with it.

    We should support/deride individual actions of companies which are good/bad for the community. But we should *never* make the mistake of believing a public company is for, or against, our community - indeed it would be illegal for them to take either stance in the face of profitability.

    That's simply not true. While it's true that there have been a number of shareholder lawsuits in recent years, there's certainly no law that requires public companies to maximize profits.

    Heck, look at Ben & Jerry's. They're publicly traded (BJICB). Here's a quote from their latest Form 10-K found at edgar.sec.gov:

    Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc. ("Ben & Jerry's" or the "Company") is a leading manufacturer of super premium ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet in unique and regular flavors. The Company also manufactures ice cream novelty products. The Company is committed to using milk and cream that have not been treated with the synthetic hormone, rBGH. The Company uses natural ingredients in its products. The Company embraces a philosophy that manifests itself in these attributes: being real and "down to earth," being humorous and having fun, being non-traditional and alternative and, at times, being activists around our progressive values.

    Does that sound like their goal is to maximize profit at any cost? No. They could almost certainly increase profits by using cheaper ingredients, such as hormone-containing dairy products.

    It's up to each individual corporation to define its own corporate charter. Maximizing profit is basically a given, but most charters contain language describing their overall conduct as well - conduct which is understood to sometimes constrain profits.

    If an investor doesn't like Ben & Jerry's corporate philosophy, he's free to buy Phillip Morris instead.

  • ..and of course Public Domain is approved as well, which is what we _real_ free software advocates have been encouraging for years.

    We are where we are thanks to licenses like the GPL. PD and BSD licenses are great, but they don't contribute to advance free software.

    PD is absolute freedom, so sbdy might think that is better "free software". And that's not how things work. Real freedom come from fair laws, freedom must be protected. A country with no laws has no freedom.

    And I'm not a FS zealot.. =) I think these are objective facts. PD and BSD are centered in the availability of the software, GPL and the like are centered around free-software, that's how I see it.

  • And that's what we are talking about! The Open Source definition is taken from the DFSG. It's the samt thing word for word. =)
  • A really free license, would that be BSD?
    Personally I'm in favour of the GPL, because this is not a perfect world. I do not want some company to embrace all my code, extend it into oblivion and release it as proprietary. I want my code and any released changes remain available to the public.

    BSD is perhaps more free. But remember that freedom goes both ways. Laws against murdering people is also limiting freedom. The rights of the copyright holder should be protected.

    GPL is sort of a standing-ground against closed corporations who spend too much energy struggling against each other. What a waste!

    - Steeltoe
  • I'd assume by that he means that it complies with the requirements to qualify as an open-source license that were going to be used when "open-source" was going to be a trademark. I don't know whether those requirements are still online anymore, since the plan was scrapped when the trademark office refused to trademark Open Source because of prior art. (Sort of ironic when you think about the patent stuff going on now...)
  • While I agree that to open up the java platform would be of huge benefit to SUN in the long run, I feel I ought to point out that the decision to release the browser may not be their call.

    IIRC when it was still called netbeans the browser was bought-in technology (I think it was call "ice browser") and if that is still the case then the OS zealot should be complaining about another company.

    We should be encouraging SUN rather than flaming them. Stop complaining that a company wants to make money or is "jumping on the band wagon" - that is what companies do FULL STOP.
  • "Remember, this is the same organization that tried to trademark the term 'open source'."

    Personally, I think it's a pity that opensource.org didn't succeed in ensuring "open source" would only be used to refer to open source products.

    At least, the way I see it, it's not a free speech issue, but rather a truth in advertising issue.

    And call me naive, but I don't think they had any sinister goals in mind when they tried to trademark it.

    The only good thing that may have come out of their failure to trademark a "descriptive term" is that they set a judicial precedent that can be used in the future to keep BigMeanGreedyCo, Inc. from trademarking the same thing. In theory at least.

    (Then again, this post may reflect my pro-ESR bias, since I thoroughly enjoy the Jargon file and nethack, and fetchmail checks all my POP accounts every 900 seconds. So bear with me. Also keep in mind that this post is 95% opinion, so don't expect me to submit a mathematical proof or anything.)

    --

  • I'm i the only one that thinks it looks more like a full chamber pot than a cup of coffee?
  • ...and of course Public Domain is approved as well, which is what we _real_ free software advocates have been encouraging for years.

  • IDE? (Score:1)

    by pecker ( 151621 )
    The compiler and browser are not being freed with the rest of the package. An IDE without these is not an IDE. Sun is just trying to spin money off of free software.
  • They care about the Linux community about as much as Microsoft does. Don't doubt it for a second.

    I wouldn't say that they care less about the Linux community than Microsoft. They do, however, care in a very different way...

    A prime example of this can be found in an interview with Bill Joy in Linux Magazine a couple of months back (November 1999):

    "If I look at the graph of what percentage of customer dollars I'm likely to get next, it's much higher if they start with Linux than if they start with Windows. So in all cases, I'd rather win and get Sparc/Solaris/Java as the solution. But Linux/Sparc/Java would be my second choice."

    (you can get the full article here [linux-mag.com].)

    Granted, they aren't going to be making any money directly off of Linux, and that is, afterall, the goal of any corporation, especially the big ones.

    It's interesting to note that in the same article, Bill Joy talks about how he doesn't see any benefits for releasing software under the GPL or something similar...Apparently there is now some kind of benefit. Whether that is a benefit to the product and the code itself, or to Sun as a PR move remains to be seen.


    Your Friend,

  • The original story behind the MPL is that the GPL suffers from a kind of Viral nature: when you use it on a project, any other projects or bits of code that come into contact with it or ar descended from it also have to be GPL as well. This is potentially nightmarish for Sun, who may wish to incorporate changes to Forte into other closed-source products, and so the MPL was developed. There is a more detailed explanation in Mozilla.org's history pages [mozilla.org] Needless to say, the ability for Sun to use any
  • I'm not an anti-Sun bigot by any means, but I think pointing to Sun's cross-platform support as some sort of good-will gesture is misguided. Sun supports multiple platforms because they have to -- if they didn't, a vastly smaller number of users would use their software/platform. Microsoft had much better cross-platform support back in the days before they owned the desktop. Sun is in no position to dictate Solaris-only software to anyone.

    Take Java, for instance. If non-cross-platform, it is just an amazingly slow object oriented language. No better than Smalltalk, or many others that have the same level of support for objects.

    If you listen to Scott McNealy rant, it becomes pretty obvious pretty soon that he is insanely jealous of Bill Gates, and he is on a Quixotic mission to somehow "beat" Bill, even though the fight was over 7 or so years ago. Put Larry Elison in that column too.

  • Not too much progress...From the FAQ:

    6. Is this a precursor to Sun announcing Open Source for the Java platform?

    No, we have no plans currently to make the Java platform Open Source. Open Source does not allow us to enforce compatibility requirements, which we continue to feel are vital for the success of the Java platform.

    Also (kind of sucky):

    2. Is everything in Forte for Java, Community Edition being open-sourced?

    No. The binary version of Forte for Java, Community Edition includes two components that will not be open-sourced: the browser and the compiler. If required, the modular design of Forte for Java, Community Edition permits developers to replace these components with alternatives.

  • Actually, Sun has been pretty honest about SCSL *not* being an Open Source compliant license. They /have/ claimed that it had "most of the benefits" from Open Source, which of course can be argued.

    Beside that, I agree that Sun doesn't owe us (the free software community) anything, and also that the previous poster is totally missing the point when he thinks this somehow is a reason *not* to celebrate when Sun desides to contribute to the community.
  • It is not the FSF, but the Open Source Initiative who maintains the list. The OSI people are largely the same who invented the term "Open Source" for free (as in speech) software.

    The FSF doesn't like the term "open source", they prefer "free software".
  • When did Sun release these as open source? They used to be open specifications, with a reference implementation source licensable "cheaply".

    What part of X did Sun contribute?

    MPL _does_ let anyone use the code in proprietary applications. However, the (modified) MPL'ed source files must be made publically available. It is close to the LGPL, except that the LGPL requires the program to be distributed in a format, so the user can replace the LGPL'ed part of the application. No such requirement exists with the MPL.

  • You know what impressed me the most about the announcement? It wasn't filled with all "We're doing the world a favor... We are reinventing ourselves..." Instead it was low key. The post even states that this is a learning experience for them. They are taking their time to make sure the test will go well.

    They are also being honest. They state that they have no intention of doing this with the whole Java package. Agree with it or not, at least they are being honest.

    My $0.02 USD is that this is exactly how a company like Sun should be introducing an Open Source project.
  • Actually Public Domain is a bad idea since it doesn't let the author disclaim liability or protect his good name in any way.

    In a sane legal environment such a disclaimer would not be needed, nor would releasing into the public domain make it more difficult to show libel (after all, it is a person, not the software, which is damaged by libel). Releasing into the public domain should put the entire burden on the user of the software for determining the suitability of that software. So in theory, PD is about as "free" as it gets, both for the author and the user.

    Alas, we don't live in a "sane legal environment."

    -Ed
  • I don't understand what your problem with Sun is. Even if Sun didn't release anything open source or under their community license, the fact that they have brought to market a programming environment that offers runtime safety, security, a very complete GUI toolkit, and reflection in itself is important. The commercial availability of that kind of environment represents a fundamental advance over the existing C++/COM and Objective-C based environments.

    The fact that Sun's systems are documented well enough that reasonably compatible third party implementations are plausible, the fact that Sun has released chunks of their system under open source and community licenses, and the fact that Sun is supporting ports for other platforms (Linux, Win32) are icing on the cake.

    So, I strongly disagree when you imply that Sun's current success is just due to misleading marketing. To me, Sun has a good product and their open source efforts and support for non-Sun platforms are meaningful. All of those are in sharp contrast to Microsoft. People choose Sun over Microsoft because of technical advantages and despite Microsoft's installed base and despite Microsoft's marketing prowess.

  • No.

    The GPL prevents Sun from accepting bug fixes to their product and reusing that code in a commercial version of the same product, or a related product.

    Look at it this way:

    I am Sun. I release Some Great Thing 1.2 as a GPL software.

    You are J. Random Hacker, who thinks Some Great Thing 1.2 is really nifty, but there are a couple of things about it that bug you. You pick up the sources, fix them, and submit patches to my maintainers at Sun.

    I pick up these patches, evaluate them, decide that you, J. Random Hacker, are a talented individual, and that your patches are good. I integrate them into the tree, and your patches are included in Some Great Thing 1.3.

    But...

    I also have a product, Some Greater Thing, that shares parts of its codebase with Some Great Thing, and you've patched it. Now I can't take the code from Some Great Thing that you've patched and integrate it into Some Greater Thing - thereby forcing a fork in my own internal development!

    _This_, primarily, is why I won't use the GPL.

    If I were to write a piece of software that I'd like reviewed by the open source community (and I am), I will release it under a really free license, then I can take any patches the community submits and integrate them into my "real" tree, and make that code available both for external use (by the open source community that's helping me with it because they find the basic premise and functionality of my code to be worth their time for whatever reason), and for internal use by my own hackers, so that we can use that code to put beans on the table.

    --Corey
  • Similarly, if there were no government-granted monopoly, there'd be no need for a GPL!

    If there were no copyrights, then everything would be in the public domain. Thus, I would have absolutely zero restrictions upon taking YOUR works closed source! Stop listening to the GNU propaganda. The purpose of the GPL is to protect the rights of the author, period. But if there were no copyrights involved, the author would have no rights at all to protect!

    Your comparison of the GPL to the police is strange. What makes the combination of YOU+GPL more like the police than the combination of SUN+MPL? Are you more equal than they?
  • The major difference between Sun licensing their own products their own way, and your pyramid scheme, as that your scheme hinges upon an act of fraud.

    People are called zealots who call fraud freedom, but then turn around and call freedom exploitation. If you want to play games with the English language, try scrabble.
  • I think these are objective facts...that's how I see it.

    Please get out your dictionary and look up the word "objective"...
  • Anyone who uses any license would be wise to reject any patch that is under a separate copyright. Once you do so you lose control of your own software.

    But a minor patch that is not separately copyrighted belongs to the original author when included in the original work. Notice that I said "minor". Your submitting a patch to correct my "foo++" to a "++foo" will give you absolutely zero rights to my code, even after I include the patch.

    So a company that releases software under the GPL is within its legal rights to rerelease it under a closed source license EVEN if they have accepted your patch.
  • But it is at least debatable whether exercising an artificial, government-granted monopoly to control an idea is "freedom" rather than "exploitation".

    It's a debate that's been going on for three hundred years by thinkers more brilliant than us. But no matter how you look at it, it still applies to the GPL, which hinges upon a government granted monopoly. Either the GPL is exploitative or it is not. If it is not, than neither is any copyright Sun uses for it's own creations.
  • The IDE will work with other VMs than those coming from SUN as well. Try blackdown if you have to stay clear from non open source stuff.
  • I completely agree with you, but I think you're missing the point.

    One of the great things about Open Source (as in a license like Mozilla, not SCSL) is that the company no longer has absolute control over what happens to the code. Sure, they own the copyright, but the code is out there, and the Mozilla License gives us right to fork the code, and do our own development. They might have released it under selfish or capitalistic reasons, but there is still source code being contributed to the community.

  • > If I were to write a piece of software that I'd
    > like reviewed by the open source community (and
    > I am), I will release it under a really free
    > license, then I can take any patches the
    > community submits and integrate them into my
    > "real" tree

    Well... I'd really want such a world, but copyright law nearly prohibit this. People who write software does have a say about who is allowed to use that. Of course, unless the license of your own software prohibit modification unless it is contributed back to your tree.

    I know only one license which goes that far (SCSL), and of course nobody really likes it. People does want the right to do modification and keep it private.

    Getting what you want by the license helps little. But there are always motives that people want to contribute code back to your tree, even if the license does not mandate it. Right?
  • I think there is a knee-jerk tendency among some OSS proponents to immediately not trust a companies motives if they don't immediatly give up all control over their most prized possessions.

    While I might not agree with many of the things Sun has done, most notably their initial handling of the Blackdown porting team, I do see merit in some of their arguments regarding Java. There are very few languages, and even fewer successful ones, that have a truly open standards process. More importantly, it doesn't matter to most developers anyways. A developer only cares that he has ready access to a C(++) compiler, and that some percentage of the rest of the world is using that language along with him/her. About the only time that developer would notice that the language's spec was open was if it fragmented and became difficult to use.

    A benevolent dictator is a very useful thing, Linus has shown that with the kernel. Whether or not Sun is benevolent is really what the argument is about.

    Hotnutz.com [hotnutz.com] - Funny
  • no matter how you look at it, [the GPL] still hinges upon a government granted monopoly. [...]If it is not [exploitative], then neither is any copyright Sun uses

    That's like saying that the police are exploitative because they use violence to fight violence! If there were no violence, there'd be no need for the police. Similarly, if there were no government-granted monopoly, there'd be no need for a GPL!

  • can we honestly say that the other big companies out there are more nice?
    No, and I think you've hit on a fundamental point. Public companies, unlike people, have no moral stance, only a financial one - a legal obligation to make as much money as possible. We should support/deride individual actions of companies which are good/bad for the community. But we should *never* make the mistake of believing a public company is for, or against, our community - indeed it would be illegal for them to take either stance in the face of profitability.

    People often support the "bad" actions of a company because of their "good" actions somewhere else. This is the same kind of thinking that made people support Microsoft when they were the underdog challenging IBM's dominance.

    So we should support Sun's use of the MPL in this case. We shouldn't believe it means they have any particular "position" as regards free software.

  • They've spend lots of time and money on their stuff, and it is THEIR stuff. They can do what they want with it. Stop bitching about it.

    I've spent lots of time and money setting up a pyramid scheme. Let me run it how I want.


    Society doesn't let me do this because it has bad social consequences. (Suddenly millions of people lose all their money, causing a major economic crash).


    Similarly, if a particular software license (or business practise) has disastrous social consequences, it makes sense to ban it.


    Whether the software licenses around today are socially disastrous is a matter of opinion. But don't assume that anyone who thinks so is a "dumb fucking zealot" - they just have a different opinion to yourself.

  • The Netscape Public License version 1.0 wasn't DFSG, and I think this applied to the MPL 1.0.
    However, the latest version of the MPL is DFSG-free.
  • Hmmm I seem to have the numbering wrong there. Anyway, there were earlier non-free versions but the current one is free.
  • Who, exactly, approves a license that, by it's very nature, is designed and executed by a community?!

    The Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org], which were drawn up by the community of Debian developers plus others, are the accepted yardstick - there doesn't seem to be much controversy about this.
  • What he probably meant is OSI-approved [opensource.org]. ESR [tuxedo.org] is the chairman of the OSI [opensource.org], but they don't always agree with him; he thinks the ASPL [apple.com] should be approved, but it isn't.
  • Thanks. It looks pretty stupid when you have a sig misspelled doesn't it!
  • First, what exactly do you consider an "approved" OpenSource license? Don't let your love affair with the L/GPL make you say something stupid. How can an Open Source license be "approved?" Does BSD count as an "approved" license? How about the X license. Why doesn't community source count as an "approved license." I don't particularly like the GPL, but is it still "upapproved?" Say you like, but don't blurt out something as a fact if its just your opinion. (IE. It was released under a license I approve of.) That said, I think that this is a pretty awesome thing for the spread of Java. Say what you will, but Sun was doing a lot to make Java not very appitizing for a lot of other OSs. This also means that non *NIX OSes will get some of the Java action. (Yea, I know it runs on NT. And Mac...kinda) However, I really don't like Java, so I'm not quite sure if I want it to spread. But to each his own, and we can always use another option.
  • It seems there's a litte misundestunding here. By approved, the author is saying that the license is real free-sfotware, with no hidden glitches. SCSL is not an approved OS license, for example. He didn't mean that Sun needs our approval for anything, just that the license conforms to what we regard as free software. And that's important, no matter how anti-RMS you might be, because it means software for everybody, with all the real practical benefits that truly free-software code gives to the people.
  • By releasing it under the Mozilla license, SUN is free to take any changes and bug fixes and place them in closed source products. The GPL doesn't allow this
  • woops, looks like the first five...

    The GNU General Public License (GPL);
    The GNU Library or `Lesser' Public License (LGPL);
    The BSD license;
    The MIT license (sometimes called called the `X Consortium license');
    The Artistic license;

    are bad links to ./

    if anyone wants to mail me them i'll be happy to keep a list on my site. www.bigfreakinserver.com [bigfreakinserver.com]

    -Jon

  • To expect a company that has spent 20 odd years in fierce competition to suddenly drop all that and "get" the idea of giving stuff away is asking too much. It'll be done in steps, and we should support and offer useful criticism rather than just dismissal.

    Progress? HAH! Try devolution.

    Anybody else remember the good old days when Sun was an arrogant upstart run by former Berkeley hackers? Their big selling point back then was them giving away -- GIVING -- source code for all kinds of neat things, like NFS. They were one of the first companies to make a living off of free-as-in-beer software that also came with source code. And they were terrific innovators in hardware. SPARC processors, anyone?

    Sun has lost touch with its roots. It is jealously guarding Java, somehow believing that it can maintain control of the language while simultaneously making it a more appealing choice than, say, Windows. Sun would be Microsoft IN AN INSTANT if they had the chance. We do well to remember that.

  • I wonder why Sun seems in general to be so afraid of the GPL. They tend to release most of their work under their own "let's-see-if-we-can-get-some-hype" license, with only a few exceptions (the only other one I know is Jakarta). This seems like a step in the right direction, as, while not the GPL, it at least is an accepted "true" open-source license. However, I'm still curious: why is Sun (and other companies, such as Troll Tech and Apple) afraid of the GPL? What problems do they have with it that they feel they have to invent their own license?

    I think that having open-source projects all under the same (or at least compatible) licenses is something that is truly necessary to open-source being a success. Otherwise, while you can bug fix to your heart's content, you loose the benefits of reuse. Whether it winds up being the GPL, Artistic License, a BSD-type license or whatever, I think that it would help if we could all agree on some license that was both flexible enough to make corporations happy without departing significantly from the spirit of the open-source community.

  • approved open source license

    Who gets to Approve an Open Source Licence? RMS? ESR?

  • "Any insufficiently advanced speller is indistinguishable from ignorant." -Hellburner "Specialization is for insects" -Robert Anson Heinlein
  • ...that Sun HAD to use an approved license, it was merely stated the they have not until recently (except for Jakahrta). Don't muddle this simple issue.

    ---
    Xiphoid Process Records - http://xiphoidprocess.com
    San Francisco based electronic music.

  • Re:Sun does more than "cater to the suits" (Score:3)

    by jetson123 ( 13128 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @08:42PM (#1205447)
    I don't expect any "good-will gestures" from Sun. Sun is a large corporation, and they will do anything legal to maximize stock holder value and return, just like Microsoft or IBM.

    However, Sun's business circumstances forces them to behave in ways that are currently more in-line with the long term interests of their customers. I also think that Sun is technically more competent than Microsoft.

    As for Java, I have to disagree. I have been responsible languages for various development projects and groups in the past. In my judgement, the Java designers made a number of essential, pragmatic choices that simply make the Java system more suitable and cost effective for many application developers than Smalltalk. In fact, I had evaluated, and programmed in, Smalltalk just before Java came out and decided that it simply wasn't an acceptable choice for our needs. I think most other developers came to the same conclusion.

    It's common for developers and inventors of other languages to dismiss the success of languages like C++ and Java as irrational. I think that attitude is self-defeating. Eiffel, Ada, and Smalltalk are marginal languages because C++ and Java, despite their myriad of well-known limitations, met the needs of actual developers better. If you want to understand this, I suggest reading Steele's "Growing a Language" and Gabriel's "Worse is Better".

  • Re:approved? (Score:3)

    by tdrury ( 49462 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:16PM (#1205448) Homepage
    I understand what you are saying and I agree that Sun doesn't owe us anything. But I believe the sarcasm comes from the fact that (early on) Sun touted their community license as "open source" when, in fact, it is not. The approved "open sources" licenses are here [opensource.org].

    -tim

  • Sun, IBM, Netscape... (Score:3)

    by jamienk ( 62492 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:25PM (#1205449)
    It's cool, I was reading one of the mozilla newsgroups (maybe netscape.public.mozilla.layout?), and someone from Sun posted asking some questions about how to make GTK+ integreate better with Motif. A kind soul (I believe a RedHat employee?) pointed out that IBM had done a lot of the work this guy was aking about. Over the next few weeks, they all looked at eachother source and planned the best way to do some (smallish) stuff.

    It was lind of cool...

  • Progress. (Score:4)

    by Matt2000 ( 29624 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:21PM (#1205450) Homepage
    Although this is not an annoucement with the kind of importance like Java being opened, it is an important testing of the waters for Sun and should be encouraged rather than flamed.

    To expect a company that has spent 20 odd years in fierce competition to suddenly drop all that and "get" the idea of giving stuff away is asking too much. It'll be done in steps, and we should support and offer useful criticism rather than just dismissal.

    The only thing left to see is if they actually do it, being as the actual release is still two months away. Sun has changed it's course before, hopefully they don't do it here.

    Hotnutz.com [hotnutz.com] - Funny

  • Corrections of errors (Score:5)

    by Kragen Sitaker ( 1440 ) <kragen@pobox.com> on Monday March 13, 2000 @03:52PM (#1205451) Homepage

    First: this is not the first time Sun has released open-source software. NFS, NIS, parts of XEmacs, parts of X, XView, olwm, and of course RPC and XDR are all open-source software released by Sun. All of these, except for the XEmacs parts, were released under a BSDish license.

    Not that this isn't important --- all of the things mentioned above were at least ten years ago.

    About Lothar's post about defense systems and banking systems being open-source: of course they should be open source. Would you really want to be defended by "defense" systems the would-be defenders didn't have the source to? Would you really want to run your bank with software you didn't have the source to?

    RMS has never said that all software should be freely available --- just that people who have a piece of software have the right to use, copy, modify, and redistribute the software as they see fit.

    Other minor points: the Mozilla license is OK according to OSI and Debian; the MPL doesn't let the original author use your code in proprietary software (but the NPL does); releasing public domain software doesn't automatically make you liable for damages; US-government-made software is in the public domain because government works are not eligible for copyright, not because the government can get away with it.

    I'm really depressed with the quality of comments that get moderated up on Slashdot these days.

  • Not the First Time (Score:5)

    by Obsequious ( 28966 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @01:59PM (#1205452) Homepage
    Sun released Tomcat (the Servlet/JSP reference implementation) under the Apache license as Project Jakarta. This was a pretty major release. :)

    Check it out at:
    jakarta.apache.org [apache.org].

  • List of Approved Licenses (Score:5)

    by tdrury ( 49462 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:13PM (#1205453) Homepage
    The list of approved licenses can be found here [opensource.org]. This was created by the Open Source org. In a nutshell: Other conforming licenses include the IJG JPEG library license and the OPL (OpenLDAP Public License).

    -tim

  • what does it all mean? (Score:5)

    by SEAL ( 88488 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:10PM (#1205454)
    Most likely: Not A Whole Lot.

    Sorry, but I have to rant about Sun here for a bit. Before someone says it: no, I'm not some Microsoft troll here. I have used Java and C++ both quite extensively. Also, I've dealt with Sun's marketing people (namely, in getting a piece of software certified 100% Pure Java).

    Sun does some things very well. Perhaps the thing they are best at doing, is catering to the "suits". This announcement just felt like more attention gathering to this effect, since Open Source is the buzzword right now.

    However, Sun is all about money. Big money. Enterprise level stuff. They don't give a rat's ass about the little guy. You'd be amazed how many emails I've received from them since I got that product certified. Usually, they want me to participate in some conference at $5k a pop.

    This announcement is just posturing and nothing more. Look at the second part of it, for example:

    2. Is everything in Forte for Java, Community Edition being open-sourced?

    No. The binary version of Forte for Java, Community Edition includes two components that will not be open-sourced: the browser and the compiler. If required, the modular design of Forte for Java, Community Edition permits developers to replace these components with alternatives.

    Now, I'm not one to bite the hand that feeds me. If Sun wants to make this small open-source handout, then that's fine. But it's more hype than anything. Much like Java in general.

    Yes I may sound bitter, but that's just because I'm sick of the games that Sun plays. They are your stereotypical "big" corporation... through and through.

    Hope that wasn't too offtopic but Sun just irks me sometimes with all the attention they get for stupid little meaningless gestures. They care about the Linux community about as much as Microsoft does. Don't doubt it for a second.

    Best regards,

    SEAL

  • approved? (Score:5)

    by shlong ( 121504 ) on Monday March 13, 2000 @02:07PM (#1205455) Homepage
    "Approved open source license"? Come on now! Since when does Sun owe you, me, or anyone else anything? Sun can release their products under whatever license they feel like. I'm thrilled that they're releasing anything. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to change corporate inertia and convince the managers, directors, and board members that releasing source is good? I'm impressed that they do anything at all. And I'm even more impressed that they don't get pissed off by people whinning about the steps that they take. Stand down your GPL jihad and give them a break!


    "I shoulda never sent a penguin out to do a daemon's work."

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