“Now, you could certainly refuse to sign the SCA and still make all of your changes available to Sun. However, it sounds like Sun will never accept said contributions back into the Officially Sanctioned Chunk of Source that the distribute as the GPL v2 Java Technologies tarball.”

If Sun had released Java to the public domain (or under a BSD license), this would be the same thing. Sun could still demand ownership of any contributions or refuse to accept said contributions back into the Officially Sanctioned Chunk of Source that the distribute as the BSD/PD Java Technologies tarball.

2.) Even if my organization needs to distribute the modified Java to customers, they only have to make the sources available. My organization does not have to transfer ownership of said modifications to Sun or anybody else. And of course, because our changes are released under GPL, everyone may now distribute our modified version of Java without even telling Sun. And if Sun releases new versions of Java without our changes, my organization can put them back in and distribute these new Java versions. No license exception or anything like that needed.

3.) If my organization wants Sun to include the changes in their (Sun’s) Java distribution, then – because naturally, no-one can force Sun to distribute changes made by others – Sun can demand whatever they want to. In this case, they decided to demand ownership of the changes so that they’ll be able to rerelease THEIR distribution of Java under other licenses. If they simply used our code (what they could do under the GPL), they could no longer rerelease the code under other licenses without our permission.

Which was my [originally somewhat unclear] point. Using the GPL allows Sun to give access to their IP in an “industry standard” fashion while guaranteeing that anyone who builds a product by modifying it must seek a potentially expensive alternative licensing agreement from Sun.

That is, Sun is using the GPL to create a revenue generating opportunity while simultaneously making their JVM significantly more attractive (compatible) with Linux. Good business move.

The Sun Contributor’s Agreement is an interesting twist. First, it means that any changes that any contributions integrated into the distributed JVM have ownership assigned to Sun and, therefore (if I’m reading it correctly), Sun has the rights to resell said contributions under whatever license they want.

Now, you could certainly refuse to sign the SCA and still make all of your changes available to Sun. However, it sounds like Sun will never accept said contributions back into the Officially Sanctioned Chunk of Source that the distribute as the GPL v2 Java Technologies tarball.

Correct me if I’m wrong: If you want to contribute to Java such that your contributions are a part of the “blessed One True Sun Java”, you have to assign joint ownership of your contributions to Sun. By requiring a signed SCA covering said contributions, Sun gains the power to assign/enforce copyright on your contribution and otherwise do whatever they want with your contribution, including changing the licensing terms of their copy of your contribution (your copy stays in your ownership) and charging money for it.

So, again, the GPL prevents businesses who have a need to distributed derivations of the Sun code from doing so without either sharing said modifications and ownership of said modifications with Sun or negotiating a license exception with Sun (which would, in term, effectively create a fork of the code).

But the GPL doesn’t require me (the maker-of-modifications) to “give my changes back” to anyone in particular. It requires that I make my (source) changes available to anyone who asks (without undue procedural or financial barriers). Sun can require anything they like for the privilege of “taking” my code, but the fact that they didn’t take it (because I refused to sign their paperwork) doesn’t violate my GPL duties. I can put my changes on my website and say “here they are.” That’s all the GPL requires me to do.

Or did Sun invent a custom, deviant version of the GPL for their Java that imposes extra burdens?

Cheers
— perry

Tone. GPL discussions are inherently emotive and positioned around Freedoms/Rights/Libre/Whatever. Your economical discussion is easily lost with your title challanging “free” and quickly lead into the scenarios application.

Did I read the quote your post was inspired from? Only on re-read. Maybe it’s the lightened color, but I think it was the “but not really free” that caught my eye, so I quickly skimmed down to find the explanation of that challange and found it fast at “in other words”.

Your iPod and music topics also add weight to your readers attention to your concern for licensing and rights, above those of economics.

“free” as in “you can’t own your changes nor can anyone else” and not the BSD or MIT definition of “free”.

Well, more like “free” as in “you must GPL-license changes you distribute, as must everyone else”. Y’know, the commonly accepted definition of “Free Software”. The kind of freedom that’s supposed to give the author and the user about equivalent rights.

You own all code you write. Full stop. Under US copyright law, (as I understand it, and IANAL) you own any parts that are uniquely yours. If you wanted to only distribute patches, you’d probably have a lot more leeway as to how you license them (but I’m not actually sure how much clarity there is on whether patches are considered derivative works). If you modify somebody else’s code, the resulting whole is owned by both you and that somebody else, and both of you must approve excersises of copyright taken by either one of you.

Under the GPL, the author is giving you permission to distribute modified versions of the GPLed code if you license them under the GPL. The GPL primarily deals with distribution; if you don’t distribute modified versions it lets you do basically whatever you want.

Hence, Sun is using the GPL to both make the Java source more accessible and to create future revenue generation opportunities.

And, again, why does everyone keep making statements under the assumption that I don’t agree with the GPL or don’t think that Sun’s decision was a good one? If you read what I wrote, you might find that I think Sun’s decision is an excellent one. That Sun has embraced the GPL to both improve accessibility to their technology while retaining ownership in a fashion where they can also guarantee future revenue streams from licensing of said technology is a brilliant move!

—

As for Mac OS X, consider: How, exactly, has Apple’s delay in releasing any piece of source damaged Apple’s revenue and company valuation in any significant fashion? Sure, it is unfortunate that it took so long for the code to come out, but — ultimately — Apple (like Sun) is in the business to be a profitable company and to boost shareholder value by boosting the company valuation.

To me, this sounds like a reasonable payment for many people, as they are getting access to 6M lines of source code in exchange for providing their changes.

Is this reasonable for everyone? Of course not. But Sun wrote the code, and they have the right to set the terms for using it. One can argue that it improves the chance of advancing the code base as everyone is mandated to give back. BSD licensed code, such as the xnu kernel in OS X, can stagnate. I don’t see an active developer community around the OS X kernel, after all–for example, how many vendors are shipping xnu other than Apple? And how long did it take for Apple to release the code? (Yes, there are more active BSD-licensed projects, but this is an example of what happens when code giveback terms aren’t enforced).

IBM is calling for Sun to “dual license” Java; once under the restrictive GPL and once under an “apache friendly” free license.

http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6134853.html

Maybe IBM will pay Sun to release Java under a less restrictive, Apache license compatible, license?