[ruffrey]

Luckily they did not acquire Node.js

edit: I should have been more specific.. when an open source project is under a company's wing and it gets acquired, you don't know what can happen, even under MIT. Look at express recently. Since it's the under the Node Foundation now, this is not a big deal. Had it happened a short time ago, there may have been further turmoil in the community.

[dmpk2k]

Given that Node.js has always been MIT licensed, that's impossible. That's one reason why it had a liberal license; just listen to Cantrill's Oracle rants sometime to get a better idea.

[cyphar]

Cantrill advocated the fact that CDDL was copyleft as a good thing[1] (it's a bad license overall, but the point is the same) specifically mentioning that the fact that Oracle couldn't use new DTrace and ZFS improvements from the community was a good thing. I agree (though I much prefer the GPL).

So actually all of Cantrill's worries with Oracle exist with Node.js's license. I am sad when I see large free software projects licensed under MIT, we are doing ourselves a disservice by allowing proprietary software to take advantage of the free software we've developed.

[1] It's part of his Fork Yeah! talk about the fork that is illumos.

[Annatar]

There are people out there like myself who are convinced that GPL is the most vile, fascist license out there.

On the other hand, I have nothing against CDDL. I think the incompatibility of CDDL with the GPL is what saved the illumos community (even if inadvertently) from having their technology cannibalized by GNU and Linux. I'm happy that BSD is benefitting from illumos (and vice versa), but I'm even more happy that Linux isn't. <--- I do not represent anyone but myself, the position expressed here is my own and not of anyone else.

[cyphar]

> There are people out there like myself who are convinced that GPL is the most vile, fascist license out there.

Not proprietary software? Not "open source" licenses that don't allow modification (which is also proprietary)? The GPL? The thing that gave us free software in the modern world? Well, that's certainly one opinon.

> On the other hand, I have nothing against CDDL.

The CDDL has a provision that if any part is held unenforcible it will be modified to make it enforceable. As a matter of licensing, that's incredibly devious and bad. There's other super dodgy parts of the CDDL that make it a bad license purely from a license point of view, let alone from "freedoms given to users" perspective.

> I think the incompatibility of CDDL with the GPL is what saved the illumos community (even if inadvertently) from having their technology cannibalized by GNU and Linux.

What are you talking about? Why do you care if GNU/Linux takes your code and modifies it? No damage is done to the original.

> I'm happy that BSD is benefitting from illumos (and vice versa)

Actually, because CDDL is somewhat-but-not-really copyleft, many BSDs essentially have copyleft requirements if you enable ZFS or DTrace. Which is funny, given how much they go on about "freedom to make proprietary software" (something I'm against).

> I do not represent anyone but myself, the position expressed here is my own and not of anyone else.

Your position is also wrong.

[ivl]

>What are you talking about? Why do you care if GNU/Linux takes your code and modifies it? No damage is done to the original.

This is more about the fact that when they take it it's worse for the project than a proprietary fork. When BSD/MIT/(other permissively licensed code) is used, modified, and re-licensed to GPL, the permissive project can't take those improvements without also re-licensing. The CDDL indeed saved illumos from being cannibalized and disappearing as a community. Had its features been easily ported to Linux without a licencing problem, the project would probably not have survived, simply due to the fact that there would have been few reasons to stick with it. It's not just about what code is out there, and you should know that.

>Actually, because CDDL is somewhat-but-not-really copyleft, many BSDs essentially have copyleft requirements if you enable ZFS or DTrace. Which is funny, given how much they go on about "freedom to make proprietary software" (something I'm against).

Only in regard to changes to DTrace and ZFS. Still totally fine to build proprietary versions of BSDs that include those pieces.

I won't go so far as the grandparent post here, but I'm one of those developers that couldn't give half a care about "user freedom". It's nice to have source as a developer, but my motivation has never been "freedom", insofar as using and understanding the software, so I understand where he's coming from in his complaints about the GPL. As a developer, it's more constraining than the permissive licenses out there. To some, that's a good thing.

[cyphar]

> >What are you talking about? Why do you care if GNU/Linux takes your code and modifies it? No damage is done to the original.

> This is more about the fact that when they take it it's worse for the project than a proprietary fork.

... Who is it worse for? First of all, that almost never happens. But for users, there's no difference (if anything it's an improvement because they now have better protection of their freedom) and the original developers can just ignore the fork or merge the code and change license (which isn't possible with a proprietary fork).

> The CDDL indeed saved illumos from being cannibalized and disappearing as a community. Had its features been easily ported to Linux without a licencing problem, the project would probably not have survived, simply due to the fact that there would have been few reasons to stick with it.

I think that's a very irrational fear. GNU/Linux took plenty of BSD code and BSD still exists, many different projects take ideas from each other -- it's what's called "collaboration".

> I won't go so far as the grandparent post here, but I'm one of those developers that couldn't give half a care about "user freedom".

It's disappointing that you don't want to actually make the world a better place (not in the standard bullshit silicon valley sense) by giving people freedom.

[Annatar]

> The CDDL has a provision that if any part is held unenforcible it will be modified to make it enforceable. As a matter of licensing, that's incredibly devious and bad. There's other super dodgy parts of the CDDL that make it a bad license purely from a license point of view, let alone from "freedoms given to users" perspective.

Wait until you discover the BSD license, which lets you do whatever you want with the code... you might get a stroke (:-D)

GPL gave me no freedoms, it gave me the GNU userland tools and GNU/Linux (illumos / SmartOS and AT&T SVR4 tools are just fine, thank you, do not want GNU!)

http://www.blinkydog.com/wp-content/uploads/Dogs-Do-Not-Want...

GNU / GPL: DO NOT WANT!

> Your position is also wrong.

Luckily I don't have to license anything under the GPL, GPL cannot take that away from me as long as I don't link with the kernel code licensed under it, or derive code / work from it.

And I'll be extra careful I don't ever land myself in a position where I would have to license something under the GPL. Any other FOSS license is better than the GPL, I have no problem with open sourcing, and cannot wait to clean up my code in order to set it free.

But not under the GPL license.

Finally, CDDL is both FSF and OSI approved: the open source initiative looked over the CDDL license and deemed it to be in compliance with open source. I will take what is in my view their expert finding over your position, but thank you for sharing your opinion.

[cyphar]

> > The CDDL has a provision that if any part is held unenforcible it will be modified to make it enforceable. As a matter of licensing, that's incredibly devious and bad. There's other super dodgy parts of the CDDL that make it a bad license purely from a license point of view, let alone from "freedoms given to users" perspective.

> Wait until you discover the BSD license, which lets you do whatever you want with the code... you might get a stroke (:-D)

Including someone taking my software, making it proprietary and mistreating users. I would prefer that less people use my code than someone doing that.

> GPL gave me no freedoms, it gave me the GNU userland tools and GNU/Linux (illumos / SmartOS and AT&T SVR4 tools are just fine, thank you, do not want GNU!)

Wow, so much vitriol for a license that actually created the world we live in today. I'm slightly impressed by how much you hate a license that gives users perpetual freedom. Also, why do you think that CDDL's weak copyleft is better than GPL? I understand, but don't agree with, people who hate copyleft altogether -- but you only hate the GPL.

> Luckily I don't have to license anything under the GPL, GPL cannot take that away from me as long as I don't link with the kernel code licensed under it, or derive code / work from it.

You can dual-license modifications to GPL code. I think doing that is dumb, but you can do it.

> And I'll be extra careful I don't ever land myself in a position where I would have to license something under the GPL. Any other FOSS license is better than the GPL, I have no problem with open sourcing, and cannot wait to clean up my code in order to set it free.

It's so sad that you don't ever want to make contributions to a large body of free software.

> Finally, CDDL is both FSF and OSI approved: the open source initiative looked over the CDDL license and deemed it to be in compliance with open source. I will take what is in my view their expert finding over your position, but thank you for sharing your opinion.

I know its a free software license. I'm just saying it's a bad free software license. The original BSD license was also a bad free software license (requiring you to add a line to all advertising about the source project).

[Sanddancer]

> The CDDL has a provision that if any part is held unenforcible it will be modified to make it enforceable. As a matter of licensing, that's incredibly devious and bad. There's other super dodgy parts of the CDDL that make it a bad license purely from a license point of view, let alone from "freedoms given to users" perspective.

No, that's a pretty standard severability clause that helps the user. It means that if one section of the CDDL is found invalid, users can still use the software. The GPL on the other hand, by refusing to have a severability clause, means that if any part of the GPL, no matter how inconsequential, is found invalid, the entire license is null and void and no one can use it. That intentional omission makes the GPL a much more user-hostile license than it should be.

[cyphar]

> > The CDDL has a provision that if any part is held unenforcible it will be modified to make it enforceable. As a matter of licensing, that's incredibly devious and bad. There's other super dodgy parts of the CDDL that make it a bad license purely from a license point of view, let alone from "freedoms given to users" perspective.

> No, that's a pretty standard severability clause that helps the user. It means that if one section of the CDDL is found invalid, users can still use the software. The GPL on the other hand, by refusing to have a severability clause, means that if any part of the GPL, no matter how inconsequential, is found invalid, the entire license is null and void and no one can use it. That intentional omission makes the GPL a much more user-hostile license than it should be.

The GPL's severability clause says that the section is invalid, not the whole license. But the CDDL allows for the license to be changed after the fact.

[Avshalom]

You know fascism is a political/economic system that advocates a nationalistic war focused culture and foreign policy, a military aristocracy and sort of mid-level command economy right? Which is to say literally nothing like any possible outcome of the GPL.

[Annatar]

Actually the way you described it it sounds exactly like the GPL license reads. It even promises to preserve my freedom instead of taking it away.

[chris_wot]

Goodness, fascism at its worst, promising to preserve your freedom!

[pron]

What does the license have to do with anything? Joyent themselves are now behind SmartOS, which is based on Solaris and its CDDL license. An open source license being more free or more liberal has absolutely nothing with the ability of the community to fork and/or continue support if the original owner discontinues it.

[berns]

I think they still own the trademark. So even if anyone can fork node.js they can't use the name.

[bdcravens]

Had the projects not merged back, I'm sure io.js would have gained significant ground, so I don't think this is that big of a deal.

[vacri]

It's already been successfully forked once, under 'io.js', when a group of developers were frustrated at the slow pace of Joyent's custodianship. io.js came back to node.js after politicking.

[dawnerd]

Same initial reaction. I can't stand Samsung and refuse to have anything to do with them. All started when they took my 5k dollar tv and started injecting ads and such all while claiming they didn't (this was before the recent media caught on)