Awesome...sun to release Java under GPL!

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Mon Nov 13 15:59:17 EST 2006


On 11/13/06, Bruce Dawson <jbd at codemeta.com> wrote:
> PS: I know Sun said they did this to get better acceptance in the Linux
> community, but they could've chosen a BSD license.

  But that would have let other people take Java and embed it in their
proprietary, closed product.

  Remember, the GPL is "viral".  Somewhat counter-intuitively, this
actually makes the GPL a good choice for hybrid open/closed projects.
You dual-license the code.  You release the open stuff under the GPL.
Thus, anyone who incorporates the open version into their product must
also release an open product.  Anyone wanting to embed in a closed
product must pay for the license to do so.

  This is a win-win from the perspective of a Sun or a Trolltech: The
"pure FOSS" community can use the stuff.  The OEM gets community
contributions.  The OEM still gets money from the traditional
closed-source vendors.

  Make no mistake, this is why Red Hat, et. al., got behind GTK/GNOME.
 GNOME lets you build a closed product on an open platform.  Thus the
Oracle's and PeopleSoft's (oops) and SAP's of the world can easily
bring their very closed products to Red Hat's very open platform,
generating lots of support work for Red Hat.  Qt/KDE would have
required those closed products to pay Trolltech a license fee.  Paying
a license fee for the GUI was anathema.

  (Note well: I'm not criticizing Red Hat, Trolltech, or Sun; just
pointing out that they have different goals, and their strategy
reflects that.)

-- Ben


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