Slashdot Mirror
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?
While it's true that a lot of "attractive/sexy" work can be done via open source methods, there's still some areas that traditional programming models (i.e., closed source) still function better (even though ESR says otherwise in The Cathedral & the Bazaar ). What, in your opinion, is the proper balance between open source and closed source methods Sun should strive to?
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
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?
Um, I'm pretty sure Sun *has* grasped the concept, but it doesn't suit their busines model.
But, for a question, how about "What is the general understanding of OSS at Sun?"
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
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.
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?
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
Me, too. Me, too.
This is the only thing that interests me, and I've often felt the way to keep the Microsoft wolves at bay was to Open Source Java, which I feel would push it much further than Sun can. Keeping a lid on Java may be the best gift to Redmond in terms of .NET acceptance, not that having hoards of PHB's saying, "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM^H^H^HMicrosoft", hurts their efforts.
If I had a question, which she may be demurring on already, it would be, "What's the big obstacle? Or is it one of those Committee things, where nobody will accept respobsibility for standing in the way and points fingers at the Committee"? I'll understand, if in the interests of preserving her position she can't answer that, either.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A list of Error 404 - file not found links.... :)
I'm still wondering if this is a simple error or a very funny joke about the endless number of licenses....
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?
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!
As the Open-Source person in a commercially successfull company, do you manage to actually have positive financial results or are you just working in order to advertise Sun's openness ?
How is your position perceived inside your company ?
Do you spend your time fight ing to get a budget ? Do your business plan includes the placement of Sun consultants in big companies ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Do you see Solaris incorporating some of the package management features found in Linux systems?
Also, Unix vendors many times have very feature-incomplete versions of utilities compared to their respective GNU versions. For instance, GNU tar (while lacking some of the Solaris tar options) has many features that are extremely handy. Do you see Unix vendors in the future incorporating more free tools over the proprietary ones they have, and if so what do you think the time frame is? Do you think that Unix vendors that move towards GNU tools and make their installations more "Linux"-like will have an edge, or will moving to unfamiliar tools be a hindrance?
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
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
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.
Geez Robin, you act like she's the only one, aren't most of us in that boat? I would guess that not all of us work with OSS-knowledgeable PHBs. They're learning slowly, but it takes time.
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
Since there's not going to be x86 support for Solaris 9, is there any chance that maybe Solaris 9 could be eventually Open Sourced (to at least allow for the possibility of an x86 version), à la Quake II?
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
In my company we have 2 MS Office Licenses (one 97 and one 2k) and the rest of us run StarOffice 5.2. It saves us some cash and spares us time in the evergoing "keep-your-licenses-at-handy-just-in-case-struggle ".
Now that SUN moved away from the "let's teake over the desktop" strategy used in 5.2 I think that the suite will become even more attractive.
Cudos to SUN from me and my pals for keeping StarOffice alive. We NEED alternatives. No matter if the are free or not.
Cheers..
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
As we heard today, Microsoft rigged a ZDNet poll to make .Net look more popular than Java. What do you think of this as a tactic, and why aren't Sun keeping up with industry practices? :-)
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)
For all those who are dying to see what
she looks like....
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
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.
Working as an opensource advocate within a primarily closed-source company, has your career trajectory been affected by your continuing advocacy of the open-source movement? For example, have there been career moves that you were unable to make because higher-ups were concerned about placing someone with your views in a position to make relevant decisions? In that vein, do you have any advice for the rest of us suits who wish to advocate open-source tactfully, without giving the impression that our primary goal in life is to give away the company's assets?
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?
Codes are open /. AC does reopen
An opcode seer
A code reopens
A creed so open
As code opener
A score opened
Redo open case
CEO dares open
Ease porn code?
or for
--
(if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
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.------
There's an interesting article at Javalobby (http://www3.usermagnet.com/nl/jlnews_20011210.htm l), admittedly from a Java pro's perspective, that talks about what .NET's submission to the ECMA really means. Here's a quote:
.Net you can expect to be using it only on Windows for a long time to come.***
:^) I'm intrigued by the idea of a GNU CLR or CLI or whatever it is now, but if it's going to be successful it'll have to progress quite a bit faster than GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/), as an example, before it's useful.
***This ECMA effort may be primarily symbolic, however, since only a player with enormous resources and funding could possibly implement the standard. If you use
Don't know if Mr. Ross is right, but I assume he's more connected than I am.
With respect to your comment:
>Other standards like Ethernet seem to have done
>relatively well compatability wise, while using
>Java across multiple platforms is an exercise in
>frustration.
Tried porting any C other than straight ANSI? Believe me, though toasters running weather modeling might be "goofy", Java makes some real headway into writing once and running anywhere. Limewire.com and Netbeans.org come to mind as pretty good xplat software that wouldn't be on our OS of choice without Java.
Yes, I realize Netbeans wouldn't be anywhere without Java since it's a Java IDE, but you get the point. I've seen a lot higher percentage (for x software packages, y had a Mac version) of software come to Mac Classic (which didn't have UNIX underneath) from Java than from C codebases.
I'm not against you being right about C#, and hope it does an even better job of making weather predicting toasters, but I'm not optimistic.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
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?
Sorry, so my question would be, "Do you see C# becoming a more successful practical standard cross-platform (let's say that means Windows, Mac OS X, Linux x86, FreeBSD, and Solaris) than Java in the next 5 to 10 years?"
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Companies where their core business model is to sell support for Open Source software seem to be dropping like flies. While it is clear that Open Source can be a good way to support another business model (such as Open Sourcing software for hardware that you are selling), do you agree that selling or supporting Open Source software, as a business model in itself, has been a failure?
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 the netbeans IDE ever start in under 70 seconds on my machine?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
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/
.*?BSD and Linux does just about the same thing. AIX, IRIS, and Solaris also does just about the same thing, roughly. We have seem motions that companies release their software as open source instead, for example XFS. There has also been work done the other way around, where non open source companies use open source software.
What that in mind, what do you want Sun to do as far as software as a whole goes. Should they take all that is good with Solaris, open source it and try to unfied it as one OS that Sun will use, or will there only be certain pieces of software that will be open sourced?
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?
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
I was interested to know, the rational behind the recent losses on the open source front that were directly connected with Sun. That being that the Solaris code is no longer available, and there is no x86 support in Solaris 9?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
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)
I was just lazy... go ahead and mod it down.
Amazing magic tricks
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?
i pasted them in from a web page... oops.
Amazing magic tricks
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
How do you convince a company that its not loosing assets on opening source?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Although any potential date of Java going open source can't be commented on at the moment, is there any likelihood that there will be a link between it going open source and being resubmitted to ECMA?
(It seems to me that the only reason C# is really going before ECMA is to rub Sun's nose in the fact that Java has been pulled from ECMA a couple of times before now.)
Jon
An open-source Solaris kernel would be able to integrate the recently-released IBM-JFS and SGI-XFS filesystems (which both seem better than ufs), along with many device drivers from Linux (with some required rewrites, of course).
Sun has come 90% of the way towards really riding the Open-Source wave. 100% would not necessarily require completely opening Solaris.
An open-source Solaris kernel on Itanium would also really screw up your competetors hopes of selling proprietary UNIX on that platform, as well...
The drawback would be that we might be able to see some sensitive information on e1[05]k partitioning and hot-swap features.
Do the Sun decision-makers see it differently?
While many of Sun's efforts seem laudable from traditional 'open source' perspectives, there are some curious relapses (i.e., Java as an open standard.) Does Sun see open source as something to be encouraged for its own sake, or is it seen more as a weapon to use against the competition (specifically, Microsoft)? Personally, I worry about the future of projects such as Star Office: given that Microsoft's lead in office software is so huge, it seems to me that alternatives to MS Office will have a long road in front of them before appreciable progress (market share) is seen. Does Sun's committment to open source and Star Office extend to perhaps a decade of underdog competition?
Thank you.
Rocketboy
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
Is it that sun "doesn't get open source", or does sun get open source, but still see value in other models as well?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Sun spent money and effort to buy OpenOffice and put resources to improve and develop it. From the impression that we get as outsider, Sun seems to want OO to compete with MS Office.
However, another impression that we have is that Sun wants other companies to use it, but Sun does not. I met quite a few people from Sun, and they don't use OO at all. A few Sun developers have downloaded it and played with it, and went back to MS Office. Funny thing is, those Sun presenters make jokes about Microsoft during their presentation, but they are all using MS Office and MS Windows. For that, I think it's not even funny.
Is this OO initiative a political game only, or is Sun serious about pushing OO to the enterprise environment? What are the efforts inside Sun to push OO as the standard office tools? What office tools do you use? Same for Scott McNealy.
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?
good call.
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.
Actually that is not entirely true. Sun first got in to the x86 market with some hardware believe it or not. They made an x86 line of workstations with a 80386 processors (386i/150 and 386i/250) and even a few 486's right before ditching the x86 line of workstations. This was around the time when Sun was still using Motorola 68020 and 68030 processors for their Sun-3 line. See more about this in the Sun Hardware Reference.
you guys need to get out more!
I truly believe that if Sun had open-sourced a reference implementation of NeWS back in 1985 that right now it would be Scott McNealy on the government witness stand right now and everybody as SlashDot would call them $un. This is because Sun would be in control of the NeWS standard and could propose and release any enhancements to it before anybody else. They could also close-source it, or close-source the enhancements (like people worry about MSoft doing with .net), if they wanted. But to do any of this it had to be accepted, and it was not going to be accepted when it cost vast amounts of money and there was another thing (X) that, while obviousy 100 times crappier, was free (well $115 for a tape of the source code).
This is typical of Ross. Not only does it not make sense (is there some limit at which we consider a system "tto big" to publish specs on?), but its patently false. The larger the system, the more necessary the spec is, not the other way around.
What do you think would be needed to qualify a product as of more danger to Sun's competitors' markets than Sun's own markets, which seems to be the main business reason that OpenOffice was selected for support and promotion by Sun?
How would Sun feel about, for example, a RAD tool which competed directly with VB+ASP but was not (or at least not primarily) aimed at Java?
How about a truly open Exchange+Outlook killer suite?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
NeWS was an advanced, Postscript-based network windowing system develped at Sun that was later dropped as a product in the late 1980s. NeWS contained advanced technologies that many people still praise today. Is there any possibility that Sun will release source code of NeWS under a free software/open source license? That should be a great contribution to the community.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
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 ?