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Re: [ProgSoc] International Solaris 10 University Challenge



On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 7:24 pm, you wrote:
 ] ...it didn't seem necessary to state this, but for the sake of 
 ] completeness, from: http://www.progsoc.org/about/whatwedo.php

 The constitution does not, and probably rightly so, touch upon
 ethics.  These are left, and probably rightly so, up to the individual
 to contemplate upon and come to their own conclusion(s).

 ] machines running variants of UNIX. Furthering UNIX, and helping others 
 ] to use it, remains an unstated objective of the Society.

 Beware of unstated anything.  Casual observers may think that ProgSoc
 has an unstated objective of storing large lumps of potentially not
 quite legal AV streams.

 But I get your point.  ProgSoc is about programming (all evidence to
 the contrary notwithstanding) but that doesn't mean it, or its members
 are not obliged to consider the ethical implications of any decisions
 they make that surround that activity.

 ]   - To encourage programming within UTS
 ] 
 ] Check. Programming required. Potential to acquire US$100k for UTS.

 Surely it'd be easier to run a few ads in various off-shore
 publications and bring in a few full-fee payers ... if money is the
 motivation here.   Whoops .. it's showing again.

 ]   - To become (and remain) affilated with the UTS Union
 ] 
 ] Eeek. Politics.

 Indeed.  And don't we have voluntary affilation these days?

 ]   - To work with and/or join organisations with similar objectives
 ] 
 ] Check. Here is an excerpt from Sun's objectives [1] as pertains to its 
 ] UNIX operating system:
 ] 
 ]    What is the OpenSolaris project? The OpenSolaris project is an open 
 ] development effort based on the source code for the Solaris Operating 
 ] System (OS). The project's goals are innovation, collaboration and the 
 ] extension of OpenSolaris technology.

 Well .. yeah .. again, that all sounds good if you take it at face
 value, but that's a dangerous (or perhaps merely naive) thing to do.

 From the general FAQ (the URL you cited) they list 6 reasons for
 open-sourcing Solaris.  Four of those reasons are worded to sound
 sickeningly altruistic.  One of them is just plain weird (the circular
 reference to existing customers who require open source) as well as
 being sickeningly altruistic.  The 6th almost sounds like it's
 pragmatic, but not quite.

 No references to profit, income, revenue .. you know .. the kind of
 stuff that businesses tend to think long and hard about before making
 pretty significant decisions about their primary bit of IP.

 What does this tell us about their stated reasons for open-sourcing?

 ] Check. Again from [1]:
 ] 
 ]    Is there any cost for using the OpenSolaris source code? No. The 
 ] OpenSolaris source code is free to use, free to modify and free to 
 ] redistribute.

 Well .. it's not free as in DFSG, and it's not free as in GPL either,
 come to that.  Other groups (Mozilla, Troll, etc) have been happy to
 release with dual licences (GPL plus their own) which makes you wonder
 why Sun are sticking with CDDL as the sole licence.  The choice of
 venue clause is something of a sticking point (or at least it was, the
 last time I tracked any OpenSolaris licence discussions).  Despite
 that, there's a fair bit of work being put in to Debian GNU/Solaris,
 even if my understanding of the nomenclature is that that should be
 called GNU/SunOS -- but even Sun appear to be blurring the line
 about their OS and OE names these days.  {shrug}   Anyhoo, there was
 also a lot of work put in a few years ago to Debian GNU/Hurd .. and
 look where that got to.  I think there's a few people still running
 Plan IV, too.

 ] It seems that Sun is an organisation which is interested in encouraging 
 ] university students to program non-commercial software for UNIX. 
 ] Seemingly the sort of organisation ProgSoc would be interested in 
 ] working with?

 There's any number of potential gotchas with this stuff.  I do not
 believe that it's guaranteed to be as transparent as it sounds.

 Concepts and algorithms have often been shown to be far more
 valuable than source code.

 Jedd.


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