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Talk to Sun's 'Open Source Diva'
Danese Cooper is Manager of Sun's Open Source Program Office. A Google search on Danese turns up more than 1000 results. She's a frequent speaker at IT industry events and conferences, and is, without question, Sun's staunchest internal Open Source advocate. Sun is moving toward Open Source in fits and starts, and Danese is behind a lot of that motion. Feel free to ask her anything you want (one question per post. please) about the trials and tribulations of being an Open Source person within a company that hasn't yet fully grasped the concept, and how she goes about trying to change that. We'll post her answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions within the next week or so. The only question she can't answer is whether/when Java might be Open Sourced. I already asked her, and she replied, "Sadly, I have no news on that..."
to be a woman in such a male dominated field? How do you keep ahead of the game?
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Is Sun moving to put more resources into the
OpenOffice initiative?
http://www.WinWithRealEstate.com/
I would like to know what you think of the antitrust situation with Microsoft, and how it would/could positively affect the open source market nowadays.
Much appreciated.
And they said zombies weren't real!
In light of this do you believe that it is possible to make money from open source/free software alone or does a company need a hardware arm like Sun?
This might seem like a thinly veiled attack in the form of a question, but it doesn't appear the StarOffice has really made a dent in Microsoft's ownership of the office suite market. Did Sun waste their time and money on this project?
The popularity of Linux, *BSD, and other open source operating systems has continually increased over the last 10 years, and in many cases, it is replacing the proprietary technology offered by traditional UNIX vendors.
Does Sun feel at all threatened by the increasing awareness and usage of other open source UNIX-like operating systems? Does Sun feel open-sourcing their software is a necessary step to compete with the free operating systems and software?
Since Solaris X86 is not going to be supported any more, is there any chance of getting that 'donated' to the user community?
I appreciate that there's a fair chunk of intellectual property in there (and probably a fair amount of overlap with Sparc), but it'd be nice to see.
If I understand Sun correctly, they are, predominantly, a hardware company. They make most of their money on hardware sales and services to support that hardware.
Why, then, would it be in Suns best interest to move towards open source when that movement could lead customers to a move away from their hardware?
Thanks,
But how is the internal climate?
Stephan
I work for a very large company (fortune 100), and we are, very slowly, moving towards using open-source programs like Linux, Apache, etc. The IT department likes and supports these applications, but it's very difficult to convince management that these applications have the same stability and reliability that commercial applications do. What is the best way to approach management to help evaluate open soruce solutions to the problems we face?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
When I try to explain open source to people who are pure capitalist, I have a hard to time explaining what can be gained. For people who are used to the concepts of Copyright and Patents, the idea that you can create value and profit from giving away ideas seems counter intuative.
How do you explain Open Source to people driven by profit in a persuasive way?
Lastly, what will Sun's biggest challenges be in moving forward with Open Source Software in the future?
A list of licenses follows for reference...
The GNU General Public License (GPL)
The GNU Library or "Lesser" Public License (LGPL)
The BSD license
The MIT license
The Artistic license
The Mozilla Public License v. 1.0 (MPL)
The Qt Public License (QPL)
The IBM Public License
The MITRE Collaborative Virtual Workspace License (CVW License)
The Ricoh Source Code Public License
The Python license (CNRI Python License)
The Python Software Foundation License
The zlib/libpng license
The Apache Software License
The Vovida Software License v. 1.0
The Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL)
The Intel Open Source License
The Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL 1.1)
The Jabber Open Source License
The Nokia Open Source License
The Sleepycat License
The Nethack General Public License
The Common Public License
The Apple Public Source License
The X.Net License
The Sun Public License
The Eiffel Forum License
The W3C License
The Motosoto License
The Open Group Test Suite License
Amazing magic tricks
There has been some speculation that Sun is uncomfortable with certifying JBoss as a J2EE-compliant container. Mark Fleury, president of the JBoss team, has said "Sun quoted a price for that certification suite that is beyond the current financial resources of the JBoss team." Is there any possibility that Sun will relax these certification fee requirements for open-source initiatives such as JBoss, especially when they meet the technical requirements as specified by Sun?
- Rev.I was wondering what contributions of the OpenOffice group actually made it into StarOffice 6.0 beta? Did only contributions make it in or is 6.0 based off of OpenOffice code?
Also, will Sun try this year to combat the misconception that buying Sun means spending big bucks on hardware?
After all the $999 Netras and Sunblades have played well in Unix-only houses but the common IT professional still seems to think they have to beaucoup bucks to be a Sun house?
_____________________________________
ACK
What are the internal resistances (from upper management, for example) that you face on your daily work to promote Open Source inside Sun?
What arguments are people that work with you using to counter-attack your proposals? And do you feel (or know) that this is also how other big companies react inside their offices to Open Source in general?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
What were the motivations and decisions regarding the decision to leave the x86 market? And, does Sun see it's move as a "capitulation" to the Open Source OS's that currently reign on the x86 platform?
Do you think companies use Open Source as a political statement to say that they support individual consumers freedom? By allowing individuals to see how a product works and to contribute back to it. Or are companies finding that Open Source can give them an economic advantage over closed source in the software industry?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Articles keep comparing J2EE and .NET. One of the unquestionable advantages of J2EE in an enterprise environment is its cross platform capabilities (specifically the ability to run on powerful high-end UNIX servers). With the Mono project building an open source, cross platform, .NET compatible framework, do you have any fear that the .NET style framework for web services might become more of a competition to J2EE than without the Mono project? Would Sun ever consider supporting Mono to enourage interroperability between J2EE and .NET components, or is this an example of an open source project potentially damaging Sun?
I'm wondering if Sun is planning to build compilers for other languages to Java Byte Code.
.net and Java is that Microsoft is promoting the use of multiple languages comiling to their byte code while Sun has always focused on only using Java to compile to the byte code used in the VM.
It seems that the bigg difference between
If Sun had done the same several years ago I think they could have attracted more developers because developers tend to be prejudiced about their coding languages.
So, is Sun planning to embrace other languages or keep Java as a focus?
Thanks
Will you support JBoss and Tomcat for the Java community?
For independent individuals to become J2EE experts, they need a web container to train on. The only inexpensive solution is Tomcat and JBoss (both open source solutions). And JBoss is the first to support the newest version of EJBs (2.0).
I would find it in your best interest to support both projects. What does the future hold for Sun, Tomcat, and JBoss?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Do you forsee Sun having their own OS in 10 years time or do you forsee Sun selling hardware with their own optimsed version of another OS? If Yes, are we likely to see such an evolution climbing up your chain from the small workstations up to the big iron OR will we see a new OS for all boxes at once? Will Sun ever make an offer like IBM's offer for AIX with Solaris i.e. "You can have anything you want from our OS"?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Sun seems to have a lot of credibility problems with the open source community. Moves like SCSL, Jini, and limited support for SparcLinux have all lead to a mixed view of Sun. In some ways, I think the reason for this is that Sun didn't drink the open source "Kool Aid".
So my questions are: do you encounter these credibility problems? Are they a problem for you? Are you (or Sun) doing anything to change these perceptions?
sigs are a waste of space
How would you characterize the work environment at Sun? Do you have any insider's advice for those of us caught up in the recent market downtown who are looking for new challenges at Sun?
Sure it may seem cheesy but whatever it takes...
Please read this document.
~~ What's stopping you?
Sun made an enourmous amount of noise about how it was Java was going to be an open standard. But after trying to prevert the standards process by becoming a "Publically Available Submitter", then withdrawing its application and attempting to get the ECMA to rubber stamp, then withdrawing from the ECMA as well, the simple fact is Java has lived up to none of its standardization promises. It claims a "covanent" with its users that means they all want Sun to milk them dry with licensing fees, but thats hard to beleive. Other standards like Ethernet seem to have done relatively well compatability wise, while using Java across multiple platforms is an exercise in frustration.
.NET are actually allowed to implement the spec freely. I for one am certainly hoping that the folks who play fairly in this space win out, and in that case Microsoft deserves the prize. Is it possible C# will be a standard everyone can use freely before Java becomes one?
At what point do users and developers need to pull the rug out from under vendors who consistently lie, such as Sun? What surprisies me here is that people seem to require no moral or ethical dimension to a company, despite the actual business harm dealing with such a company poses. There have been a number of other cases where soon-to-be open sourced software went closed source, so the danger in these situations is real.
Microsoft, after a long history of BS, actually seems to be doing the right thing with C# standards wise, and I suppose the proof will be in the pudding if go-mono.com and the GNU Portable
Most /.ers work with a number of Unix distros.(Solaris being one of them) I like many others would like to see Sun embrace the Open Source movement more fully. As customers/admins what can we do to help you push Sun more in this direction? Can you give us some practical ways to help you? (i.e. email decisionmaker@sun.com and kindly request more involvement from Sun)
While most discussion revolves around software companies moving to open source, how do you think other large companies such as the international investment firm I work for be convinced to switch to open source? I guess this is a question more of your customers. I want my company to move to GNU/Linux and open source, but being on the Microsoft train for so long they are afraid to even look at other options. How will Sun get their customers to embrace open source? (And any suggestions on how I can convince my company to switch would be much appreciated!)
Developers: We can use your help.
The people over at JBoss are very high on their software (rightfully so in my opinion) and have proclaimed that their J2EE application server will be the death of WebSphere, JRun, iPlanet, etc. Presumably the big draw to JBoss is not only that it works but also that its free and open source. Is Sun planning on open-sourcing iPlanet or making it free to compete with JBoss?
Why Sun should adopt Open Source? Or adopt Free Software? When their major competitors, like MS, Compaq are not? Should Sun go to a business plan IBM style? Selling consulting and not products?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
Although hardware, by definition, can't be "open source (code)". But how does/can any of Sun's hardware business meld with the open source concept?
I am an OpenSource and FreeSoftware advocate, so please spare me the usual advocate diatribe. I would like to know why it is you support and push OpenSource software in your company. Sun, is by definition, one of the companies that OpenSource and especially the FreeSoftware Foundation is trying to topple. Why would you, or Sun wish to adopt an opposing strategy which has, unfortunatly, failed(for the most part). I realize that there are projects which have been extremely sucessful(Apache comes to mind) but so far, most other OSS projects have gone down in flames or sit in obscurity(Linux, *BSD). How do you think you can make it work, and how can it benifit the public as a whole?
I've been following Microsoft's .NET strategy for quite some time and have been quite interested in the Passport vs Liberty Alliance scenario.
Firstly, what exactly is happening with Liberty Alliance at the moment? I got the impression that the iniative was started as a marketing oppositing against Passport as there doesn't appear to be any visibility of the implementation on the web site.
Secondly, there is also an open source source initially from .GNU for this central authentication service. Essentially both Liberty Alliance and .GNU are trying to provide an opposition framework to Passport - and yet the nature of the concept and the existance of the two projects seem to be self depricating. If everyone and their dog develop a centralised authentication service that spans services across networks - people would probably use Passport purely because of its market share.
Would it not be a good idea to somehow merge the work done to offer a unified opposition to Passport?
Will Sun ever port this office suite to Mac OS X since OpenOffice isn't making any progress?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Making money from Open Source is one often raised topic but not this time. Lets say that Open Source is a 'Good Thing (TM)'. While advocating it, you spend time and effort to convince customers and co-workers that the benefits are real. Well, that's nice. If you are right, they believe you, they follow your advice and they get the benefits. Very nice. But how do you make sure that some of those benefits will spill over to you? Or even to your company?
Since Sun doesn't want to spend money on Sol x86 anymore (which BTW, provides indirect revenue, but whatever), any chance it could be a project given the Open Source community?
The JCP (Java Community Process) gets lots of critique from many in the open source community, since they claim it is basically run by Sun. It isn't open in the same way as ANSI, ISO or ECMA standardization. I would argue that it is open in other ways, where ANSI/ISO/ECMA are closed, or limited.
However, could you enumerate exactly in which ways Sun as a company is granted extra priviliges in the JCP, compared to other companies, and elaborate upon why these extra priviliges are there? Removing them could be a huge boost of the popularity of Java within the open source community.
Thanks!
Mats Henricson
Scott Mc Nealy (your esteemed *cough*cough* CEO) once said : "You have no privacy. Get over it". I may have a couple of words wrong, but you get the drift.
Considering Sept. 11th aftermath, the new rules being put into place in the USA (some say they are privacy-invading) and the fact that a lot of Open Source software reject the position of Mr McNealy, what do you think will happen?
I think this question is especially relevant, since a lot of users are getting very wary of large companies (Redmondia comes to mind) tracking each and every gesture through the latest version of their software.
Many thanks in advance.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
What the the limitations that you have found with respect to Open Source software when you have been able to incorporate it in to your product portfolio? Where is it a success and where has it been a failure?
It's difficult for business people to understand that there is value in giving something away. What are the biggest obstacles you face in speaking to executives about the business value of open source, and how do you work through them to get buy-in? What are the objections, the communication barriers, the comprehension gaps, and how do you counter them? Can you explain to them the value in such a way that they can understand it from a "business value" perspective, or do you need to get them outside the typical "business value" framework to communicate with them?
-Thomas
Has interaction with the open source community contributed to any changes in Sun's internal development practices and/or toolset and/or do you see this happening in the future? I'm speculating that perhaps the toolset being developed at Tigris may be funded indirectly by Sun via CollabNet with an eye towards internal use in addition to use in Sun's collaboration with the community on projects like OpenOffice, Netbeans, and JXTA.
Have you read the Hacker Ethic, if so do you agree with the concepts of open source there exposed?
After scanning all of the comments about this article, I've found that most of the controversial/antagonistic comments are about java versus Open Source.
How do you deal with these type of questions when you are speaking internally?
Are you an "Open Source is the One True Way [TM]" kind of person, or are you an "Open Source Can Help Us Crush Our Competitors As Long As We Don't Give Up The Good Stuff [Java]" kind of person?
I realize that this question is kind of trollish, but I'd really like to know where you personally divide "Open Source" and "Good for Sun".
Way back in the 1990's, Sun bought Lighthouse Design. Lighthouse published a suite of top notch productivity apps (spreadsheets, presentation, diagramming) and other good stuff for NextStep and OpenStep -- the predecessors of Mac OS X.
After these apps were end-of-lifed, an effort was made to tidy up their source code and release them as some flavor of open source. For reasons that have never been clear to me, the release did not happen.
Can you shed light on this? Or perhaps give someone or something a nudge and get the balling rolling again?
Ray Ryan
Former UI Lead of Lighthouse Design
Will Sun ever make a native compiler for Java which allows for binary executables?
The advantage of native compilation (as the GCJ folks already know) is a bit of improvement in performance, as well as a reduction in startup time amd memory usage because JVM/JIT compilation is not needed (though the runtime still is). Sun has already put a lot of optimization tricks into Hotspot, so putting all that into a native compiler shouldn't be too hard. Native compilation would probably be most beneficial for desktop apps using Swing.
Why was the Solaris source closed, and the x86 version taken off of Sun's free download section?
Being member of a JCP commitee almost always affords high financial investments/fees. Thus in reality there is usually no way to contribute for small companies or individuals. Is there any chance that the JCP model will change soon, e.g. to a true Open Source Community Process with much broader, independent developer involvement?
(Note that I am not asking whether Java will be Open Source, even if this would be the most interesting question)
The first Sun Workstation I used, a Sun 1, Serial number 184, had an OS very close to vanilla BSD and, in order to put an Ethernet card and a slip line on it (so it could be used as a router) we could modify the drivers and recompile the kernel.
So, Sun was an Open Source leader in the 1980's -- before the term was even coined.
Could you give us any insight as to why Sun decided to close its OS' source? And start charging extra money for its compilers? (Why, so SUN could have $$ to devote to developing NeWS?)
It seems to me that the reason SUN needs an "open source advocate" at all is their fall from grace 15 years ago. You had it right the first time.
I understand that SUN did an incredible donation to the community by GPL'ing OpenOffice (the Free Software version of StarOffice). But, as it stands, OpenOffice still depends on GPC (General Polygon Clipping Library) which is not free for commercial use. This means that business use of OpenOffice, if deemed a commercial use, might need an authorization from Alna Murta (GPC's author) or else be illegal, which is more likely because most people don't even know about this issue. Are there any plans to deal with this last roadblock ?