Hi guys,
Is Solaris a free operating system?
Thankx

"Free" has a couple of meanings in English.

Solaris 10 is free as free beer.

OpenSolaris is free and open source software.

Thanks jlliagre

Actually free has one meaning in English. Unfortunately the FSF tried to hijack this word for their own purposes.

Haha yea. I mean, I am 100% behind the ideals of free software, but the terminology is non-obvious. MIT computer scientists are not best suited for the development of marketable phrases. A step above "Foo and open source software," perhaps. But yes, everyone likes Freedom.

Maybe but an ambiguous one though which translates in more than one word in many languages. How do you say "free" in Siberia ?

That thread neither answer to my question nor to my point ...

Free = "no restrictions". Anything else isn't free. That's what we say waaaaaaay up here in Siberia

I think you already said it correctly, free as in beer. Anything less isn't freedom.

opensolaris is free solaris isnt...

I'm not an English language expert at all but your definition looks confusing.

"free of charge" and "freedom" are different concepts to me.

Thank you guys

The basic idea of freedom is unfetterdness, whether it be the ability to do as you please without any restrictions or to receive something without obligation. It's really different aspects of the same basic concept.

The essence of freedom is lack of obligation.

Of course a very important aspect of keeping freedom relevant is responsibility. But a lot of people have confused these two ideas and come up with a new, third idea, that forcing people to conform to their values can also be called freedom. This is the tactic of the FSF and its adherents who believe that software source code is ownerless and must be available to anyone. Furthermore, they believe that they have the moral high ground, so they don't object to forcing you to conform to their ideals.

They will respond by saying that you don't have to open your source code if you don't use their source code or any derivative work (this itself is disengenuous) but their manifesto clearly states the elimination of programming as a viable career and the socialization of the software business as its goal.

"Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free." -- GNU Manifesto

My point is that you can't force people into freedom. Freedom is something that is only found in the absence of coercion. While it is very nice if people will distribute their source code, each person owns the work of his own hands. To try to lay claim to someone else's efforts is nothing less than thievery. If the fellow who wrote the code wishes to make it available, that is his choice. If not, we should also respect his choice.

"“Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?”

If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs." -- GNU Manifesto

It is surprising that these twisted, criminal thoughts are held in high esteem by educated people. Reading the entire document brings to mind the same brainwashing approach history showed us from WWII.

Neither Solaris or OpenSolaris are really concerned with the GNU license given the fact the former is released under a proprietary one and the latter mostly under the CDDL which I believe hasn't the GPL issues you are complaining of.

Solaris is free of charge, OpenSolaris is freeer. That doesn't mean they do not have obligations. Freedom isn't a all-black or all-white concept.

I understand that Solaris doesn't use GPL. It's a good selling point!

Freedom is a black and white concept, that's exactly my point. Freedom is binary. Either you have freedom or you don't.