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Sun Mulling GPL for Solaris

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the but-not-anytime-soon dept.

comforteagle writes "According to this article in InfoWorld, Sun Microsystems is considering open sourcing Solaris by changing licenses to the GPL. What kind of impact would this have on those of you considering opting out of Unix for Linux? Red Hat and others have openly targeted Solaris users to switch." By the end of the article, the change seems rather unlikely to happen, but it's still interesting to see what changes this could bring about.

4 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. never happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No way. They wont gpl java, but they'll gpl solaris? Highly doubt it.

  2. Why it should not and won't happen by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Sun would have to replace all of the UNIX code. They can't put that under the GPL, period (unless SCO and Novell agree it's ok ;-)

    2. Solaris includes many products that Sun has incorporated over the years. Most of them would likely have to be replaced, since I doubt the contracts involved allow Sun to just GPL the whole mess.

    3. They would just be asking to have SCO add them to the list of companies targetted for a "tainting" suit, though honestly Sun may not care.

    In the end, I think it would make far more sense for Sun to open source their SMP code by working with IBM on modifications to Linux. Sun+IBM could probably get Linux deployed on both of their very-high-end boxes in short order.

    The SMP stuff is, as far as I know, most of what's left that Solaris does better than Linux, so what's the point in open sourcing the whole OS anyway?

  3. Re:Always Wanted to Try It by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What worries us about the GPL is its capacity to encourage forking, because what's happened in Linux is that Red Hat has forked.

    As opposed to the original AT&T UNIX license which thankfully prevented companies like Sun, HP, IBM, SCO, SGI, DEC, BSDi, etc. from forking...

  4. Re:Always Wanted to Try It by smallpaul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another thing Schwartz doesn't get: the possibility of forking is precisely what makes "Open source" open. The CIO does not want open source code because he wants his internal IT team to make a fork. He wants open source code because he wants the assurance that if Sun drops the ball technically or goes out of business (both possibilities) IBM or Red Hat or some mythical "Solaris Support Inc.) could pick up the Solaris ball and keep running with it. As long as it is proprietary to Sun, it gets bought by whoever buys Sun and it may be in their best interest to kill it. Mitchell Baker said it best: Open Source is about the freedom to choose leadership. Solaris users should be able to follow Sun's variant of Solaris as long as Sun continues to innovate and lead. But they should be able to follow someone else's variant if Sun starts to falter. This is all true for Java as well of course.