Sun Mulling GPL for Solaris

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.

Comments

Why?

[bcmm]

Is this because enough people want open-source that they can no longer compete without it?

Re:Why?

[jc42]

An explanation that I've found very effective over the years:

Way back in the 1980's, I worked on a number of projects that had teams building their software on a number of different kinds of small computer systems. The teams using Sun workstations often got a bit of flak for using a system with a fairly high price/performance ratio. But the Sun-based teams invariably had the last laugh.

What happened was that debugging would frequently lead into parts of "the system", i.e., system libraries and/or the kernel. When we asked the vendor for details of the low-level software, the answer would reduce to "We can't tell you; it's proprietary". The proprietary, closed-source parts of the systems were brick walls that blocked progress.

With Sun (SunOS or Solaris), if we couldn't get an immediate answer from Sun, we would just ask on one of the Sun newsgroups. Usually an answer would come back within hours, most often from an engineer within Sun. Very often, they would include a chunk of the source code as an explanation.

The result was that the teams developing on Suns would get answers to their technical questions, and would have a functioning product long before any of the other teams. There's a real advantage to having a working, marketable product, even if it's more expensive than a competitor that doesn't work yet.

Over the years, this Sun advantage has evaporated. It has slowly become more difficult to get accurate details on the inner working of Solaris and other Sun libraries and tools. They have gone the protective, proprietary route. And their market is slowly being eaten by linux, for exactly the same reasons as above.

It's possible that what is happening inside Sun is that the people who understand this are starting to be heard again. If they can make the innards of their system as open as it was 20 years ago, they stand a good chance of recovering their business.

Alternatively, if the protectionist factions inside Sun prevail, they could also start up a linux-based line. This would be a bit of an expense, but no more so than their switch from SunOS to Solaris (i.e., from BSD to Sys/V) 15 or so years ago. If they did this, a Sun linux would probably wipe out Solaris over a few years, for the same reasons of faster development times on an open system.

The cheapest would be to open-source Solaris. This would get them back into the good graces of software developers, and would restore their earlier status as a system on which you can bring a debugged, reliable product to market very quickly.

And it would probably be better for all of us, since it would avoid the growing threat of a linux "monoculture". The unix part of the industry has always been better off because it isn't a monoculture, and thus isn't susceptible to the virus/worm-type attacks of the "market leader".

But there are those elephants hiding in the middle of the room: patent and copyright. Can Sun legally open-source all of Solaris? If they try it, can they withstand the legal might of an SCO with behind-the-scene Microsoft support? Stay tuned ...

Re:Why?

[jc42]

I don't think, that there is a big thread for Linux to become a monoculture or proriety. (This would be the thread, Jonathan Schwartz was bashed here a few days ago, right?).

Yeah, you're probably right. The linux landscape is the metaphoric "herd of cats".

But still, we should be aware of the potential problem, and we should discuss it. It's similar to how we shouldn't be too smug about the linux (and *BSD) security question. In both cases, we're muuch better off if we constantly harp on such problems, and point fingers at potential problems.

In the case of the monoculture, there is indeed a real potential for problems in the business arena. The business world has always favored a monoculture, as a way to simplify decision making (which can be costly in both money and careers). In the corporate linux market, RedHat has a strong lead, and there's a serious possibility that they could end up ruling the linux business world.

RedHat deserves a lot of credit and support for what they've done. But "winning" and vanquishing their competition could make them a target for the virus/worm plague that has infected the Windows user community. Granted, writing such software for linux is much more difficult than with Windows, but it's not impossible that a single distro would have an exploitable hole. Then we could see half the banking system or half the credit industry going offline simultaneously.

So we should be preaching to the business folks about the dangers of putting all their corporate eggs in the RedHat basket. We should teach them that part of the reason for all the Windows problems is the monoculture. They should intentionally use different distros, configure them differently, run different DBs, etc. They should look for ways to tailor their systems to their environment, so that they aren't too similar to other computers.

And we should be on the lookout for other such developments. We want a herd of cats, not a flock of sheep, to help prevent the single points of failure that results from widespread use of a single distro. If we make serious sales to the non-tech world, we should fight the widespread desire to have a single "one size fits all" computer that everyone is pressured to buy.

Just wondering.

[MrMr]

Would this inculde Re-GPLing the part they licensed from SCO?

Re:Just wondering.

[newhoggy]

Would this inculde Re-GPLing the part they licensed from SCO?

It doesn't matter. In SCO's eyes the whole thing is a "derivative" anyway.

switching

[Knights who say 'INT]

I just posted this on an OpenBSD story, but it fits quite well here. I only use Linux because it's the easiest way to get myself a KDE desktop.

Really, if *BSD or a Free Solaris or anything else come up with live cd's or start-me-up installers, I might as well try them to test for performance and stability. Since KDE runs in any Unix-like system, "switching" is not quite a problem for me.

I just want the best desktop environment available today and that's KDE. What it's running on top of, I don't care.

Re:switching

[vorpal22]

I just want the best desktop environment available today and that's KDE.

Absolute nonsense. I've played around with KDE extensively over the years, from the early version 1.0 branch to the present, and I have to say that in terms of usability, it's gotten appallingly worse as time has progressed. I mean, whoever organized the KDE control panel should be ashamed of themselves! It's a convoluted mess of far too many options that makes it damn near impossible to get done whatever you want to get done unless you know exactly how to do it. Upon my last few installs of KDE, after hearing that god-awful sound scheme, I scampered off to the control panel to turn it off. This sort of task should theoretically be easy, right? It wasn't. It took me a significant amount of time to locate the appropriate settings and disable.

KDE certainly has many strong points and it has a lot of potential. However, it seriously needs a heavy dose of usability. Now Mac OS X... there's a desktop environment I can worship for its elegance and functionality.

education

[ezelkow1]

Im not sure how this would affect the business world, but here at least it would most likely spread more understanding of *nix. Most of the apps we use here in classes, various Programming/Asic/Chip design programs, are only run on solaris boxes. If solaris were available for free, i have a feeling many students would install it on their system, just to more easily use these apps if for nothing else.

Can they even do this?

[mst76]

I though there was a lot of System V code in Solaris. How can SUN ever GPL that?

Re:Can they even do this?

[adam mcmaster]

My guess is that they'd rewrite the parts they don't own - kind of like what happened with BSD.

Re:Can they even do this?

[Johnny Mnemonic]

It could be an absolutely brilliant strategic move.

Could be. It could also be the end of the line for them, as other Linux developers take all the interesting bits from Solaris and port them to the Linux kernel--then you get all the stability etc of Solaris, but with Linux. Then Sun has not much left to offer but nice support plans.

Come to think, GPL of Solaris would allow Sun to build their own Linux and include the good bits of Solaris in it; maybe that's their plan.

Re:Can they even do this?

[zerocool^]

Then Sun has not much left to offer but nice support plans.

And really, really nice 64bit hardware. But, you're right, that's going to have major competition in the years going forward.

I like sun. I think there will still be a niche market for them for quite some time (they're not dying, blah blah). But, I do think they need to innovate something. If they open solaris, it's going to keep a lot of people on solaris that might have switched and just been willing to deal with mediocre hardware, but it will also probably mean that a lot of stability could find its way into linux. So, yeah, you're right. This + something new and cool could be a good business move.

~Will

Great

[Spit]

Solaris kernel is an awesome piece of software. I build Sun systems with a full GNU toolset, would be nice to have a full free systems this good.

Solaris For All!

[LuserOnFire]

I think it would perk up a lot of ears if this happened.

Like RedHat, though, a lot of it would come down to support. If Sun offered an inexpensive support package to compliment it, then that would get more people downloading it.

Very Good

[ThisNukes4u]

This would be good news for everyone. There would be a previously closed OS open to audit and use by everyone. It would be especially be good for the academic community who couldn't previously afford to teach classes on Solaris. It would also give developers a chance to port features form Solaris to Linux or BSD, so that everyone could benefit from the hard work Sun has done on Solaris.

Solaris user

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Solaris user. OK, I'm a Red Hat Linux user too. But all of my important stuff happens on Solaris. It's just part of my reality at work.

I wouldn't mind if Solaris opened up. It wouldn't be a huge deal for me - I'd still pay Sun for "premium" support, and I'd still only use official Sun versions of things. Heck, I need someone big to blame if and when things go really wrong. I pay Sun to be that target.

I use Sun/Solaris because (1) I have the budget to, (2) it works, (3) I only have one vendor to deal with, and (4) there's no compelling reason to change right now.

If Sun can get something out of opening Solaris - great! If open source developers can improve the world by the opening of Solaris - great! But at least in terms of my current position, it won't have direct impact on me.

Re:Why doesn't Unix die?

[dustmite]

Because it works.

NeWS

[argent]

I think Sun would do better digging up some of their older code. NeWS, in particular... now that Apple has shown that you can be successful with a non-X UNIX GUI based on Postscript, Sun's own networked Postscript display system is ripe for a comeback. Remote desktop performance for a NeWS-based environment using current processors would be a killer, and they could incorporate Java as well as Postscript applets in the GUI.

Boon for Linux, death for Solaris

[Ossifer]

As others have mentioned, Sun can't GPL code they licensed. (Remember the first open source mozilla code?)

Thus we'd be given a nearly useless, incomplete operating system. If the Sun-owned Solaris code is truly GPL'ed, the Linux folks would pick all the good bits out of this carcass and discard the rest.

Thus nobody would use OSS Solaris, but Linux might be improved here and there. So, I highly doubt Sun will truly GPL their code.

(Apologies to Linus Torvalds for comparing him to a vulture.)

This could be disaster for linux, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would still be wonderfull for open source.

Think about it:
Solaris itself is based on BSD software.

The cost of supporting both linux and solaris would be much diminished. Interlopy between desktop (linux) and server (solaris) would be very clean and tight.

Does Sun make a living on selling software? Does it make a living on selling hardware?

NO! It makes a living selling complete systems, business solutions, and then providing support for them.

What does the clients care if Solaris is GPL'd or not? The only place you'd get Sun's support and hardware is from SUN! Why the hell would you want to run your infrustructer with Solaris on 400 dollar walmart machines?

Sun is losing out customers now, but doing something like this will enable them to retain those they already have and then open themselves up to more possiblities, more chances for long term survival instead of ending up a legacy support mechanism ala SCO.

Plus solaris is so complex anyways, only Sun would be in a position to support and improve on it for several years, while you have all the development base that has evolved around Linux and BSD to help out with bugs and evolutionary improvements. Like Linus to Linux Sun will always have the final word on what direction Solaris is going.

However all signs point to no, that Sun still doesn't get "open source" and "free software" stuff. So far they think people want a Linux OS with a bunch of closed source liscencing restrictions tacked on the top of it.

They don't realise that one of the major benifits of free/open software is avioding crap like that and that's what it makes it appealing to lots of people.

(not all, I realise that some people don't give a damn about freedom as long as they get their paycheck, but there still are people who realy care and understand that unbridled closed source liscencing can be like a ulcer that won't heal to a large infrustructure. Causing pain and extra costs and restricting the potential of a orginization.)