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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday May 29 2014, @12:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the What's-yours-is-mine dept.

In a blog post, Hewlett-Packard's CTO states his concerns about Oracle's newly proposed license:

"Recently, Oracle submitted the new Universal Permissive License (UPL) for approval to the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The OSI is the well-respected steward of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and reviews and approves open source licenses which conform to the OSD and do not create proliferation issues. Oracle claimed to address the non-proliferation issue by stating it viewed UPL as filling the need for a permissive, MIT-style open source license with explicit patent grants."

Among other things, he explains why he does not like it:

"At a high level, the UPL copyright and patent licenses are overly broad. They extend to current and future versions of both the UPL-licensed code as well as any software/hardware identified in a file included with the UPL-licensed code. There is no requirement that the UPL-licensed code be associated in any way with the software/hardware included in the file in order to use the license to that software/hardware. This is a very expansive license.

There is no defensive termination clause under the UPL, which would allow a licensor to terminate part or all of its license if the licensee sues the licensor for patent infringement. This means a licensee can get very broad rights in the licensor's technology, sue the licensor for intellectual property (IP) infringement, and not have to worry about losing its license to technology licensed under the UPL. As you can imagine, this is very attractive to those entities who frequently engage in litigation."

The license approval request can be found here.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @12:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @12:53PM (#48705)

    My experience over the years is always stay away from Oracle. I've not used all of their products, but when I've migrated away from one of their products to an open source alternative, I've always been happy and saved a fortune. Their support has been atrocious, and without support, why would you use them?

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Webweasel on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:00PM

      by Webweasel (567) on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:00PM (#48707) Homepage Journal

      Very much agreed.

      Having worked with oracle for the last 14 years, all I can really say is:

      Fuck oracle, fuck it up its stupid arse.

      --
      Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:20PM (#48715)

      The university I work at site licensed Oracle Unbreakable Linux instead of using Redhat Enterprise.

      It was substantially cheaper and came bundled with all the cluster extras for no extra cost.

      We are an Oracle shop though, primarily because our HR/Finance/Students systems are Oracle backed. Those systems will never support an open source back end. It's just not an option.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @04:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @04:03PM (#48805)

        We are an Oracle shop though, primarily because our HR/Finance/Students systems are Oracle backed. Those systems will never support an open source back end. It's just not an option.

        Not with that attitude, that's for sure.

        FYI, we were an Oracle shop also, until we decided we didn't want to be any more.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:36PM

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday May 29 2014, @01:36PM (#48721) Journal

    *looks at the GPL*
    - "A viral license? You call that a viral license?"
    *brings out the UPL*
    - "THIS is a viral license."

    --
    Account abandoned.