ZFS License and Future
Steven Susbauer
steven at too1337.com
Sat Nov 6 04:44:32 UTC 2010
On 11/5/10 5:19 PM, Alejandro Imass wrote:
> Precisely. This is Larry Ellison's position on Open Source:
>
> <quote>
> If an open source product gets good enough, we'll simply take it.
> [...] So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it – a
> company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing, include it in our
> products and charge for support, and that's what we'll do. So it is
> not disruptive at all – you have to find places to add value. Once
> open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. [...]
> We don't have to fight open source, we have to exploit open source.
> </quote>
> Source: Financial Times interview, 18-Apr-2006
> http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041820061306424713
It sounds like he's probably a big fan of the BSD license. I do not see
how this is a bad thing, other than he uses potentially inflammatory
words like "exploit." The basics of what he says are exactly what Red
Hat has done from the beginning, and Apple with OS X. Note he says "take
it for nothing," he is not referring to buying companies but the
practice of including/distributing this software and providing support
for the entirety.
> the technology, etc. Look at what happened to Android for choosing
> Java. Supposedly, it was Open Source and there you have it: it's open
> source if and only if... For example, WyTF do I have to login to
> Oracle to access the error message information?
Android uses the Java language, but this is not what that suit is about.
Oracle claims the Dalvik VM infringes on their patents. If Android was
using the Java VM there would be no lawsuit. Sun was able to
successfully sue Microsoft for similar reasons in 1997 (incomplete
implementation of the Java standard). Somehow people continued using
Java, despite this.
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