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Cobalt Acquisition Good For Open Source Community?
kirwin writes: "InfoWorld offers some insight to the possible rewards that the Open Source community could reap, thanks to the
Sun's acquisition of Cobalt Networks." I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I'm gonna adopt ye old wait-and-see before I
let it bug me.
The article is based on the premise than Sun will leave the Cobalt hardware running Linux. It's also misses the fact that recent Cobalt hardware is Intel based, though that strengthens the argument.
I think Sun will replace Linux with Solaris because of the mindset they have that Solaris is better in all ways. This will hurt Linux, and not help Sun as much as it could if they didn't do that.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Look, folks, they would not be Open-Sourcing a $70M+ product (StarOffice) if they didn't want the community buy-in.
Ahem. And what else could they do with StarOffice? Sell it? I don't think so. It's buggy, bloated, tries to pretend it's the only application you'll ever need (tm), and is generally full of cruft. It cannot compete with MS Office. It's actually not even in the same league.
Sun is an old-style company trying to find its way into this new world.
Er... Sun is Microsoft with smaller teeth. If it manages to kick Microsoft's teeth in (with the help of DoJ or otherwise), it'll become the biggest fish in the pond. That's the only thing, other than money, that it's interested in. And, yes, since it's a big corporation this is as it should be.
Basically, Sun is practicing diplomacy towards OpenSource, where diplomacy is defined as "saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a stick".
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Look, folks, they would not be Open-Sourcing a $70M+ product (StarOffice) if they didn't want the community buy-in. Sun is an old-style company trying to find its way into this new world. We want something from them - we want Java to be Open Source. Jumping down their throats is probably the wrong way to get that :-) . Thus, rather than foam at the mouth about Solaris on the Cobalt, let's just wait and see what plays out here.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Some may dispute Sun's record, but from what I see, Sun is already very open with source code and standards. This is likely to continue. Consider Star Office as an example. They took a closed source system and opened it up. The first iteration was with the SCSL and they later revised their license to GPL. There is no guarantee that the Cobalt system will be more open, but if I had to take a guess I would think it to be likely.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
He usually hits it on the head, but I think that Sun is more likely to co-opt Open Source rather than aid it with the aquisition of Cobalt.
For example, take the entire Intel thing. The real dynamic is that Intel/Cobalt/MIPS/Linux perception of the unwashed masses is that Cobalt and/or Linux provide a cheaper, better alternative than the expensive stuff from Sun.
Now, what happens if Sun changes the chip to the new Ultrasparc IIe, and runs Solaris-Lite on it? Sun gets a new product line that is still, for all the reasons why Cobalt was successful, is going to allow them to serve a low-end audience without killing off their current higher-end offerings. They expand the pie. And this is likely to be the scenario that Sun follows.
The question is, at whose expense is this pie expanded? Linux/xBSD/etc. running on Intel, that's who. The "dumb" users will see the same experience as they're getting now. Savvier users won't see Solaris as being inferior to Linux, most likely, and the upgrade path "benefits" will not be lost on them.
I believe that this is going to be a bad thing, overall.