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OpenSUSE gets more open

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 18 comments
Computerworld; By Jon Brodkin 		Mail this story
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Novell Inc.'s openSUSE project is becoming more open, as a new release due out Thursday includes licensing changes that make it easier to redistribute the Linux operating system, as well as a build service that will encourage more contributions from open-source developers. OpenSUSE previously used a standard user license agreement and contained some proprietary software -- namely Adobe Acrobat and Sun Java -- that made it difficult to redistribute the open-source software, says Joe Brockmeier, Novell's openSUSE community manager. OpenSUSE 11.1, the release that will be announced Thursday, modifies the license to eliminate some of the legal headaches and removes the proprietary software, which now must be downloaded separately.

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Comments (18)

Java?

hchaudh1 ·
Isn't Java OSS now?
tuxchick ·
Actually it's Free software, GPL.
dinotrac ·
TC -

So the answer is yes, right?
TxtEdMacs ·
Dino,

Quoting:So the answer is yes, right?


Wrong! Come on you are just miffed because you cannot now say it's really not the freest type software. Right?

Your buddy Txt. just keeping you on the straight and narrow. No telling what lawlessness that individuals trained as lawyers might do.
tuxchick ·
Well dino, there is a difference, and it's sloppy to conflate the two. Rather like "intellectual property", or the assumption that Ubuntu = Linux. I spend my days immersed in tech reporting, which gives nothing but sterling examples of sloppy thinking and misuse of terminology, so I notice it more :)
dinotrac ·
Not in this context.

The answer is "yes".

GPL'd software is Open Source Software.

It is possible (and, in fact, there is 1 OSS-approved license used by, I think, 1 program) for an OSS program to not be "free" within the FSF defintion of the word, but, as a practical matter, it doesn't happen. That's because OSS was started as a marketing program for FREE SOFTWARE.

Open Source Software may be GPL software, and, I would bet, most of it is. But..it can also be BSD, CDDL, etc.



hchaudh1 ·
I don't know a whole lot about software licenses, but I was under the assumption that GPL'ed software is free (freedom) and thus is not proprietary and thus can be packaged with a distro without qualms.

The referenced article says that Java is proprietary software. I don't think that is true? Sun has OSS'ed Java.

What am I missing?
mortenalver ·
There are two versions of Java at this point (well, more than two) - the standard JRE/JDK which is proprietary, and OpenJDK, which is GPL. The OpenJDK contains all parts of the "standard" JDK that have been open sourced, the exceptions being certain parts where there are problems for instance with third parties owning rights. I think the missing parts have been filled in from the Classpath project, so OpenJDK is complete, but could still have compatibility issues with some applications/applets.
jezuch ·
Warning! OpenJDK's license is GPL *plus Classpath Exception*. This might be relevant to some lawyer, or sth. Keep in mind just in case.

[The Classpath Exception, taken from the Classpath project, relaxes some restrictions on linking, because it's not really clear what does "linking" mean in Java]
tuxchick ·
Hmph. Giving informative answers is against the TOS ya know, mortenalver and jezuch.
hkwint ·
Quoting:Open Source Software may be GPL software, and, I would bet, most of it is. But..it can also be BSD, CDDL, etc


You obviously missed Microsofts 'shared source' initiative; which makes large parts of Windows Open Source.
Sander_Marechal ·
Hans, I don't think Microsoft's shared source licenses were accepted by the OSI, so that's not open source. MS did have one license accepted by OSI but that's not the one they used in their "Shared Source" initiative.

"Shared Source" was a joke. It was "look but don't touch, and don't learn from it or we'll sue you".
dinotrac ·
Sander -

Yes. In fact, one Microsoft license (can't remember which) seemed almost designed to show the OSI folks up as hypocrites -- a genuinely free license from the bad guys.

The OSI did the right thing and certified that license (after a few changes), because, well, the idea is free software, not good guy/bad guy.
vainrveenr ·
Quoting:Hans, I don't think Microsoft's shared source licenses were accepted by the OSI, so that's not open source. MS did have one license accepted by OSI but that's not the one they used in their "Shared Source" initiative.

"Shared Source" was a joke. It was "look but don't touch, and don't learn from it or we'll sue you".
then
Quoting:Yes. In fact, one Microsoft license (can't remember which) seemed almost designed to show the OSI folks up as hypocrites -- a genuinely free license from the bad guys.

The OSI did the right thing and certified that license (after a few changes), because, well, the idea is free software, not good guy/bad guy.


Actually, an excellent non-trivial example of Bad Guy, Good Guy (which is itself an arguably-effective reversal of the notorious Bad Cop, Good Cop scenario, http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-good-cop-bad-cop.htm) In the example brought out here, Bad Guy, Good Guy is distinctly used to obtain more widespread license-acceptance, rather than as a "law enforcement investigatory technique, which might lead to a confession or the arrest of a suspect".

Microsoft comes out with a questionable license structure which prohibits "learning and improving" upon sourcecode except in limited situations which it effectively controls. Once a significant number of people become attuned to this ruse, they then put forth their "genuinely free license from the bad guys" and can then proudly trumpet this about in order to attempt to "show the OSI folks up as hypocrites".

A fairly typical tactic on the part of Microsoft.

Read the whole comment
dinotrac ·
Call it how you want it, V., but Microsoft gave the OSI sufficient rope to hang themselves, but cooler heads prevailed.

Might be related reason(s) for all this

vainrveenr ·
Quoting:Novell Inc.'s openSUSE project is becoming more open
Well, it probably has to do with Novell's need to draw in more "new blood" to its business. Buttressing this claim are a combination of the three recent Novell posts submitted by Scott_Ruecker with the three recent Novell posts submitted by thevarguy : - 'Novell’s 2009 BrainShare Conference cancelled', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113874 - 'HP to offer Suse desktop Linux to small businesses', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113724 - 'Red Hat and Novell duke it out in real-time', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113651 - 'OpenSUSE 11.1: Only Part of the Novell Story', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113829 - 'Novell, Hewlett-Packard Push Desktop Linux In Schools', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113580 - 'Novell's Financial Results: SUSE Linux Sales Stats', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/113296

Certainly quite the multi-faceted approach Novell is taking here.

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