"Jesse W. Asher" wrote:
> Isn't this kinda antithetical to the open source movement? This is
> basically saying, "Hey, we're going to make something open source, just
> not on these platforms."
No, it's the _exact_opposite_, "we're going to make something open
source, just not on these closed-source platforms." That's what the GPL
is all about, instead of other licenses like BSD. If Sun wants XFS for
closed-source Solaris, they can commercially license it from SGI since
they hold the copyright. This what we mean about free software being
"free speech," not "free beer."
Dual-licensed GPL/commercial is a very powerful profit model. The
community gets it and gets to refine it for free, but your competitors
don't. And if the product is good, the community will adopt it as a
standard, and then marketshare forces your competitors either out, or to
work with you on it. But the best part is that the community decides
whether or not your product is good and should be used widespread, not
your marketing department.
> Are you saying that the source code can't be used by someone to port it
> to Solaris, or that it just hasn't been done?
If you have the access to the Solaris source code, you can take the XFS
source and port it as long as the end-result is only used internally.
GPL allows this, unlike many commercial open source licenses (e.g.,
Apple, Sun, Netscape, etc...).
-- TheBS
--
Bryan "TheBS" Smith mailto:b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx chat:thebs413
Engineer AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org
President SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
"The [US] Constitution guarantees you Free, not Fair. 'Fair' is
a socialist concept." -- Shawn McMahon
|