CDDL isn't that wonderful from this side of the fence, either.

Simon Phipps comes to the defense of the CDDL. So does Claire.

It seems that the GPL folks are screaming that CDDL stinks because it allows bundling with non-CDDL licensed works. Yawn. As a BSD-style license advocate, it's not that wonderful either.

My first problem with the CDDL is that it enforces derivative works of a CDDL file to go back to Sun. It's essentially (and mostly functionally equivalent to) the LGPL in that sense. Yet, as we've seen, that only forces developers to implement all sorts of goopy hacks to try to not have their custom changes be encumbered by CDDL.

Furthermore, what exactly is Sun going to do with these changes that third parties make? Why force it back in to the commons? Why do they think those changes are going to be any good?

I'm also willing to bet that Sun themselves won't honor the CDDL on the source either: they will use their position as copyright holder to 'close source' their Solaris modifications. If they need to make any changes to the Solaris tree, which they currently claim will be derived from the OpenSolaris trees (much like Mozilla and Netscape's odd marriage at one point), that the modifications will be kept private and, hence, not under CDDL.

See the CDDL grants an uneven playing field by allowing the copyright holder more rights than rest of the community. At least, the BSD-style license allows everyone on the same playing field by allowing third-parties the same rights as the copyright holder (i.e. to make private modifications and distribute them). This disparity is even more acute with GPL than with CDDL: see MySQL and their licensing nightmare.

The BSD-style licenses are the truest forms of 'open source' - you do what you want, just don't use our service or trade marks. If you want to contribute it back, brilliant. If not, have fun.

At least Sun is making a real effort and can talk intelligently about it. Props for that. But, welcome to joys of open-source licensing: no one is ever happy no matter what you do.

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