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?"

Comments

wonderful interface, poor hardware

[craqboy]

I really wish the cobalt stuff would have lasted. The interface is great and I was able to learn a lot of linux from using the interface and wondering how it worked out.

The hardware on the other hand was really shitty and ended failing no matter what version cobalt raq/qube you had. I have a cobalt raq that doesn't work and also a cobalt qube 3 that has some misc. hardware issue. I hope someone can work the source and make a good UI for a generic platform.

Already?

[peterdaly]

Sun has not owned Cobalt for a very long time IIRC. Do they still have anything substantial they got out of the purchase, or was the whole this money down the drain at this point?

Did they need to purchase Cobalt to "get their heads around" Linux? Did they need Cobalt to figure out how to make a low end Intel server? Maybe Sun has less between their ears than I gave them credit for, but I don't believe either is the case.

Seems like a bad business decision to purchase them to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Cobalt Replacement

[iStitz]

Has anyone made an "Internet Appliance" to replace the Cobalt RAQ line? Although the RAQ line was not perfect, it's ease of use was unmatched.

It's doesn't matter

[Fjord]

is anyody going to actually pick up the software and start making their own Cobalt clones

It doesn't matter. If nobody does, then Sun was justified in killing it off. If people do, then Sun should be congradulated on doing the right thing.

This makes me feel a lot better about using Sun technologies. I know they have a tight control on Java now in order to make sure it does fly out of control as some people beleive happened to C++. This makes me feel that if Java does become legacy and unsupported, that the systems I'm building now with have another avenue of support.