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Comment by wstrange | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that was the case.

(usual disclaimer, not a lawyer, etc.). CDDL is file based - basically saying "if you modify this file, and distribute the software, you must provide the source code to the modified files".

Sun's intent (as far as I understand) was to appease OEMs by allowing them add additional files to Solaris (think device drivers, etc.) without requiring them to give away the source to their IP.

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Yes that was indeed the case, Sun Solaris was losing hard to Linux and they were trying to go the open source route to get back on track (OpenSolaris), however since they (rather obviously) did not want to hand over their key technology advantages like ZFS and DTrace to Linux (their main competitor to which they were losing), they needed to release them under a non-GPLv2 compatible license to prevent Linux inclusion.

They were initially waiting for GPLv3 to be finalized (which would have been fine since Linux is GPLv2 ONLY) but it took too much time so they created CDDL which was, of course GPL incompatible.

I think it is the case that CDDL was deliberately intended to be incompatible, mostly because Danese Cooper, author of CDDL, said so herself.

Not true at all.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=youtu.be...

We have some Sun people saying that was the reason, and some of them saying that it wasn't. That sounds like an ambiguous draw to me.

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