Relicensing NetBeans under the CDDL

Since launching NetBeans.org in 2000, the source code to NetBeans has been licensed under open-source the Sun Public License. As of NetBeans 5.5, it is now available under the open-source Common Development and Distribution License.

The two licenses are equivalent - both allow commercial redistribution, and both require modifications or improvements to the project's existing code (but not your own source files) to be contributed back to the project. This change should have no significant effect on existing products or projects based on or using NetBeans. Both licenses are Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved licenses.

Why change licenses?

The SPL was based on the Mozilla license - as CDDL is as well. The MPL was one of the first open source licenses, and a lot has been learned in the six years since we adopted it. The CDDL was developed to keep the good attributes of the MPL, while making the language simpler, making the notices in source shorter, and addressing specific concerns over some of the "patent peace" provisions that SPL inherited from the MPL, which are deleted in the CDDL - specifically section 8.2 of the SPL/MPL. One way to think of the CDDL is as a cleaned-up version of the Mozilla license - anyone can reuse it as-is. It's the SPL version 2.0.

As a result, by moving to the CDDL, more projects can use NetBeans code.

Both the CDDL and the SPL are OSI-approved licenses that meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition.

Impact for Developers

We expect this change to have no significant impact on either projects using NetBeans software or developers writing software that integrates with NetBeans. The license notices required in source files will change - this is the only thing likely to affect developers' daily work.

NetBeans-specific CDDL mini-faq

How does this impact people who have signed the contributor agreement?
It has no impact at all - your rights to relicense and reuse your contribution as you see fit have not changed, and you do not need to do a new agreement or sign anything.

I am contributing to a project. Do I need to contact other contributors, or ask them to do anything?
Assuming all contributors have signed a contributor agreement (if they had not they would not have CVS write access), then no.

Do I need to do anything to my sources to change the license?
Generally, no, this will be done across the entire CVS tree by a script. If you have code on a branch in CVS with old license notices, which you later plan to merge to the trunk, you may need to adjust the license notices on new files from that branch when you merge them.

If you have sources outside NetBeans CVS and you want to change the license notices, a convenient Ant target can do that for you. Learn how to use it here.

More Information

• Description and Rationale for creating the CDDL
• The Open Solaris Project was the first open source project to use the CDDL, and has an an extensive FAQ about it and the motivations for its creation and use.
• A blog from one of the creators of the CDDL about the motivations behind it.
• The Project Glassfish CDDL FAQ
• The Open Source Initiative (OSI)'s listing of the CDDL License