[advocacy-discuss] "What is OpenSolaris" page

[Stephen Lau]

Sean Sprague wrote:
> Ceri,
>
>   
>>> ISTR vague references recently by Sun management that they're considering
>>> dual-licensing ZFS with the GPL.  As the copytight owner, that's their
>>> entitlement, though I think it is a really dumb idea (if the Linuxites
>>> want ZFS, let them change THEIR license).
>>>     
>>>       
>> I womder if this is actually not a matter of choice, given the rollup of
>> ZFS into Lustre.
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> One assigns certain rights to
>>> Sun when one contributes code to OpenSolaris: I wonder if those rights
>>> include the ability to relicense said code?
>>>     
>>>       
>> Yes, they do.
>>   
>>     
>
> Are you a lawyer?
>   
Whether he is or isn't, the language in the Sun Contributor Agreement 
seems pretty clear-cut. I'm not a lawyer, but certainly the text that says:
"2. With respect to any worldwide copyrights, or copyright applications 
and registrations, in your contribution:
• you hereby assign to us joint ownership, and to the extent that such 
assignment is or becomes invalid, ineffective or unenforceable, you
hereby grant to us a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, 
no-charge, royalty-free, unrestricted license to exercise all rights
under those copyrights. This includes, at our option, the right to 
sublicense these same rights to third parties through multiple levels of
sublicensees or other licensing arrangements; "

and
"3. With respect to any patents you own, or that you can license without 
payment to any third party, you hereby grant to us a perpetual, 
irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide, no-charge, royalty-free license to:
• make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise 
transfer your contribution in whole or in part, alone or in combination 
with
or included in any product, work or materials arising out of the project 
to which your contribution was submitted, and
• at our option, to sublicense these same rights to third parties 
through multiple levels of sublicensees or other licensing arrangements.
"

seem pretty straight-forward to me.
>> I can't see anything productive coming from this thread now, so perhaps
>> we should kill it.
>>     
>
> In that case, maybe you should just not read/contribute to it any 
> further, and leave us to our further discussion; should we choose to 
> have one.
>   
I'd venture to say that this discussion isn't advocacy related, and is 
thus off-topic for this list.

cheers,
steve

-- 
stephen lau | stevel at opensolaris.org | www.whacked.net