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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?"
Previous article about Sun taking the Cobalts off the market.
...not too bad, some duplicates found by CPD.
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Was I the only one who accidentally read, "Sun opens Cobol Code," and thought, "Egads, some things just need to stay closed-source" ?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Umm, that's probably because it IS the same Cobalt that produced the Cube. Sun bought them several years ago (and subsequently killed them off by failing to release timely security patches or regular updates anymore). I've got several RaQ4r's and I should find out how this affects us when we keep them around to use as workgroup toy servers after we upgrade to general purpose Linux servers. They were great and I would keep using them if only Sun kept patches up to date. Oh well.
The number of sites on Cobalt has declined since August 2002, when it reached its peak of 3.1 million hostnames and 942K active sites. Our November hosting survey found Linux-Cobalt serving 871K hostnames and 527K active sites.
Percantage of Linux Active Sites with Known Linux Distribution:
Redhat 51.7%
Cobalt 19.6%
Debian 15.4%
Suse 10.5%
Mandrake 1.9%
Gentoo 1.0%
From NetCraft
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.
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.
Symantec will still develop it, all the Gateway Security firewalls and Raptor firewalls were built on cobalts
http://open.cobaltqube.org/
Featuring Blue Quartz
The Cobalt software can be found at: open.CobaltQube.org and the ROM can be found at SourceForge.
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.
Thus inviting disaster to my oh-so-dainty home DSL line, I nevertheless boldly post a link to a set of humorous uses for a dead Cobalt Cube. These pictures were done by a former coworker of mine, Scott Lundberg (Hi Scott!) about four years ago.
http://www.mbuf.com/deadcube.php
In a related rant, to heck with the upper level source code. I want them to release the schematics, BIOS, and boot code for the ARM cube! Having a turnkey ARM system like that would be an incredible boon to the embedded Linux world. Open Source doesn't necessarily have to mean just source code, IMO.
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.
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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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.
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.
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.'"