Monday, 22 August 2005

Sun Launches Open-source Digital Rights Plan

Sun President Jonathan Schwartz is scheduled to announce the long-brewing project, called the Open Media Commons, at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Aspen Summit on Monday. The software the company hopes will be employed for digital rights management (DRM) is coming from Sun Labs and is called Dream (DRM everywhere available).

Dream is open-source software governed by Sun's Community Development and Distribution License--the same license it uses to cover its OpenSolaris operating system. Dream's components include software for letting different DRM systems interoperate based on credentials held by individuals, not by particular devices; server software for delivering streaming video; and Java software for managing video streams.