[rollcat]

> Please don't try to delude people by changing the definition of open source.

Don't blame it on me, that ship has sailed over two decades ago. That's why RMS didn't like the term in the first place. Even if I disagree with RMS on most things, I have to admit I'm 100% with him on this one. It's almost as if the term was coined to create this kind of confusion.

In my opinion, the mental gymnastics around the definition of "open source" led to abominations like CDDL, which was carefully and explicitly designed to make it impossible/impractical/illegal to properly integrate ZFS or DTrace with Linux. CDDL is perfectly "open source" by definition, but its primary purpose was to lock people out of actually using software licensed under it, unless they happen to be running Solaris.

In all this mess, I actually think BSL is cool. It's a legally binding vow to actually make a particular release free (as in freedom) down the line. They could have kept it proprietary (which I think is totally fair), or made vague promises instead.

[jen20]

> but its primary purpose was to lock people out of actually using software licensed under it, unless they happen to be running Solaris.

And yet here we are, with DTrace (CDDL) shipping in macOS, ZFS having shipped in OS X for several releases, and FreeBSD shipping both. Even Windows (on the "insider" builds) has DTrace [1] _shipped by Microsoft_.

That makes any argument that you can't use any of this stuff unless using Solaris looking rather... wrong - and the idea that Sun lawyers would have overlooked FreeBSD, macOS or Windows if the goal were to restrict the software to be used in Solaris is laughable.

In the case of CDDL specifically, even RMS [2] refers to it as a "free software license", though not one which is GPL-compatible.

[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...

[2]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#CDDL

[rollcat]

> And yet here we are, with DTrace (CDDL) shipping in macOS, ZFS having shipped in OS X for several releases, and FreeBSD shipping both. Even Windows (on the "insider" builds) has DTrace [1] _shipped by Microsoft_.

That's why I personally strongly prefer BSD systems (OpenBSD in particular) and permissively-licensed software.

> That makes any argument that you can't use any of this stuff unless using Solaris looking rather... wrong

The intent was to lock out Linux specifically, otherwise they would've used a more restrictive license.

> [...] and the idea that Sun lawyers would have overlooked [...]

You're not violating the CDDL by linking it with GPL-licensed software, you're violating the GPL. Which goes to show just how devious that move was: even if Sun went belly up with no lawyers left to lift a finger, relicensing Linux with a CDDL linking exception would still be a massive clusterfuck. So Ubuntu & whoever else is shipping zfs.ko is risking getting sued by any of the half a million people who have their code in the kernel.

> In the case of CDDL specifically, even RMS [2] refers to it as a "free software license", though not one which is GPL-compatible.

You can also license your software even more permissively, but hold a patent on it, and not grant a patent license to your users. It would technically be free, but still released with an intent of restricting the freedom of certain users.

[bcantrill]

As has been discussed many times on HN before[0], your read of history here is just wrong: we at Sun certainly did not think that Linux would let their own read of the GPL prevent them from integrating DTrace. More generally, other faults aside, Sun was emphatically not "devious"; as I have quipped in the past, one of Sun's greatest strengths was that it was insufficiently organized to be evil.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11176361

[rollcat]

> [...] one of Sun's greatest strengths was that it was insufficiently organized to be evil.

That gave me a good laugh. Fantastic bit of insight. I will have to study this case further, thank you for the enlightenment. <3