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Sun Opens Cobalt Code
Bush Kanaka writes "It looks like Sun has released the user interface and back-end custom code for the Cobalt Raq550 under a BSD-like licence. The BIOS code is also, apparently, now open source and is being maintained by Sun engineer Duncan Laurie in his own time. This has to be good news for all those Cobalt devotees who were annoyed when Sun killed off Cobalt last month, but is anybody going to actually pick up the software and start making their own Cobalt clones?"
I've got a three-system (used) computer rack that cost in total around $350. It helps to know somebody in the computer department of a large business when it comes time for them to unload their stock, especially when the alternative is for them to pay to dump the stuff.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
This gesture is far more useful to those who are "stuck" with an end-of-lined server. If there are flaws with the software (and with Raqs, there are always a few that creep out over time), the admins can do the fixes themselves.
I really doubt that anyone is going to use the Raq software to start a new project when there are cheap, well-exercised alternatives on the market.
That's pretty cool, I guess we'll see a slew of userfriendly server distros based around that... And dedicated server companies installing them on cheap hardware instead of the non-free alternatives!
Gotta admit that it's pretty nice for a company to open-source what they will not use for profit anymore..
First, those of us who rely on Cobalt appliances will stand a better chance of finding useful updates and peer support as no doubt from the existing Cobalt users communities a thriving community will appear around this project. I have spoken in the past about Sun's lacklustre approach to providing software updates for these boxes so from there any progress can only be an improvement.
Second, the Cobalt www based admin software is not that bad. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's quite good. It allows people who would normally have no idea to administer a www connected server appliance and having at times seen some of the competing commercial offerings I'd say it does that job well and I'll certainly spend some time poking around inside it. To have this project in the public domain as open source can only be of benefit to the open source world as a whole.
I await with interest further developments upon this piece of software.
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You forgot the footnote to those figures:
26% of Linux Active Sites have known distributions.
So the figures you cited are based on a large fraction of the total number of linux sites that are monitored. The true number may not be represented here depending on how the different installations are configured.
I imagine the purchase was fraught with internal struggles at Sun: those who wanted to purchase Cobalt to add to their low-end server line, and those who wanted to purchase Cobalt and kill it to remove a potentially dangerous competitor in the mid-range market, which is where Cobalt would probably have taken their product line next.
The Cobalt line essentially stagnated as soon as Sun purchased it. While they don't seem as innovative today, remember that 7-8 years ago this was really cool stuff. I've had great experiences with these machines. The machine owners can easily manage virtual hosts without my help, and I can always SSH in to do heavy lifting. I had hoped that Cobalt would push the appliance concept into the mainstream, but for whatever reasons the concept just never caught on. I've seen many small/medium businesses struggle with IIS/Exchange or smail/sendmail and waste thousands of dollars and many hours of work, when a $2000 cobalt would have been up and running in minutes and ready to add users. They aren't the best solution for every problem, but I've seen many places where it would have been a perfect fit. That's they way the industry works sometimes.
Aside from Genome integration, Solaris userland has been static for many, many years (far too long IMHO - Sun relies upon sunfreeware.com far too much).
Why would the Cobalt code not be useful as part of the base install?
Actually, what I'd like to see is Sun pick the best GNU distribution and wrap the Solaris kernel and libc around it. Sun releasing GNU/Solaris would prove that there is life in the old girl yet.
MOD PARENT UP!
.php.inc files in the user/admin interface were left browsable, so that administrator passwords could be easily viewed if attacker knew their location on the filesystem. And with opening the source to the UI, things like that will happen.
He speaks the truth.
He might be wrong about 3 users, but now all the people that ARE using RaQ's will be that much more open to attack.
Besides, Cobalts arent exactly well-known for security, either. I've heard that
They should open their eyes and realize how valuable the cobalt line was to the market it served and how that market is coming right back again in the form of consumer level servers. Consumers are gathering large amounts of content (mp3s, movies, photo albums, etc) and they are starting to want to host this content - THEMSELVES! This is a nice market for low cost, quiet, easy to manage servers. The average consumer doesn't want to administer Linux, the want to administer something along the lines of a Cobalt server (or easier).
Sun once again pisses away an opportunity because they can't see the forest for the trees.
I know at least one of their servers (RAQ XTR) is x86 based. Besides, most of the frontend code appears to be scripting code or otherwise cpu-independent, so a recompile should solve that problem. Hopefully this will result in code for generic Linux/BSD machines.
A big wish of mine is for the Cobalt web/mail admin code to find its way as a plugin for the very excellent Webmin project. Webmin has a web frontend like Cobalt which covers lots of other functionality, but generally it tends to be thin wrapper around the config files. The cobalt GUI abstracts things quite a bit more for new users and for basic tasks, and Webmin would benefit from this.
Also of course, the cobalt rom is immensely useful, since that's how you load your kernel which loads your kernel :) It might be best to just put your actual kernel into the flash, though I've heard of people having had cobalts so long the flash has gone bad or something, and the system dies permanently when they try to update the rom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"