[ogb-discuss] License clarification?

[John Plocher]

S h i v wrote:
> I believe clarification regarding the OBL(OpenSolaris Binary License)
> by a qualified person is essential.

IANAL.  I Do Not Speak Officially For Sun.  May contain nuts.

However, I *did* talk to Sun's lawyer on this topic yesterday, and
while I can't take any credit, I would not be surprised to see the
wording in question change to avoid just this type of confusion :-)

My understanding:

Much of OpenSolaris is covered by the CDDL.  Period, done,
end of discussion.  CDDL says you can do pretty much anything
you want modulo ensuring that free stuff stays free, and, with
those parts of OpenSolaris, you can continue to do those things.

There are certain portions (e.g., the so-called "closed source"
binaries) that are covered under a more restrictive license - like
the OBL - in most cases because those are the terms that Sun itself
is required to distribute them under.   [And, no, I don't understand
why the OBL refers back to the fact that some things are covered by
the CDDL or other licenses... Seems like recursion, as coded by a
lawyer :-) ]

The rest of OpenSolaris (i.e., the non-CDDL and non-OBL part) is
covered by a bunch of different licenses: GPL, LGPL, MPL, Artistic,
Apache, BSD, ..., and you still need to follow the terms of those
licenses for those things.

   -John