Slashdot Mirror
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.
Is this because enough people want open-source that they can no longer compete without it?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Would this inculde Re-GPLing the part they licensed from SCO?
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.
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.
I though there was a lot of System V code in Solaris. How can SUN ever GPL that?
No way. They wont gpl java, but they'll gpl solaris? Highly doubt it.
http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/get. html
It's pretty fussy about hardware etc, though, and very obviously not the equal of Solaris/Sparc.
If this isn't a load of hot air, this is a milestone in OSS software. A major unix vendor open sourcing their code would do several things.
/. tomorrow for the retraction. Either that, or it's Sun's CEO tempting us again, to jerk it away at the last minute.
1) It would lend more credence against the SCO argument. "It's my unix and I'll GPL if I want to..."
The bad thing is that I'm gonna be looking at
Jay | http://oldos.org
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.
POKE 36879,8
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.
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.
thisnukes4u.net
Okay, last time: 5 is May. I think you meant this to be on 4/1.
Getting sued by SCO?
KFG
With that out of the way: This would be a powerful argument against the whole "lol but ur open sores software is only made by teh hobyists and not by teh proffesional programrz at big corpz" line of BS regularly spouted off by corp types and their toadies, the MCSEs and MIS/management types.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
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?
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.
1. pretty nicely on expensive hardware, but I wouldn't choose it over Linux. (And in my job, I *do* basically have that choice.)
2. not really, no. The x86 version was available "free as in the cost of media" for a while, and it was a sad, sad joke.
Anyway, the article is pretty full of silly FUD, like this choice tidbit:
That's ridiculous of course, but more importantly, the only way in which it really makes sense is when you're still thinking about developing *propriatary* apps. If you can just recompile, pretty much *anything* that runs on one Linux distro will run on another. But if you're stuck in a shlepping-around-binaries mindset, yeah, there may be some difficulties.
Basically, they're still as clueless as ever. And we're certainly not going to see what Sun really needs -- an open source Java.
I doubt there's much money to be made in selling Operating Systems. As I understand it, Microsoft's bottom line is largely generated by their consumer and professional software, not their OS. Redhat's profits come from support contracts.
I can't see Solaris OS being majorly profitable for Sun either - they sell hardware too and if an open-source Solaris led to more end-user interest in their hardware it's easy to see it leading to an increase in revenue for Sun.
Even if it didn't, more Unix code in the wild would mean better performance for all OSS operating systems, once the predictable legal/licensing issues had been sorted out, (preferably by the assassination of Mr D.McBride and all his staff).
I can't see a GPL'd Solaris being harmful to Sun. They probably couldn't re-licence enough of the code to make competing distributions appear anyway.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
With friends like these ...
Because it works.
I think it's obvious what would happen if Solaris were released under the GPL.
They would be able to dip in to all of the device drivers that Linux has today. That would happen first.
What would happen second is the standard cross-polination; anything that's substantially better in either one (think scheduler, VM etc) would be copied from the better one to the worse, improving it. How much Linux might take we won't know until we've seen the code. But I'm certain that Sun would benefit the most from access to those device drivers.
Sadly, I must disagree. Modern apps - especially GUI apps - often depend heavily on services and libraries from the major toolkits and desktop environments, and this makes them less source-portable.
... well, that's another story and one that's much more of a problem in the distro forking area.
It is hard to write an app that'll run on even 2-year-old versions of the same distro it was written on.
OTOH, this is not due to forking at all, but rather the lack of care about stable APIs, combined with rapid release cycles, in a lot of open source software. This has it's advantages - ugly decisions don't lurk forever (witness Windows' APIs by comparison), and things can evolve quickly.
I'd call "forking" a secondary issue for app developers, over trying to support distros over more than about 2 releases.
As for ABIs
You may be aware of this already, but try FreeSBIE
It's a FreeBSD Unix LiveCD with a desktop environment (XFCE I think). It doesn't work properly on my nForce2 PC (no network and consequently no internet) but it certainly works.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It is about time *ALL* *nixes were reunified into one humongous tree, out of which various branches (which will have a common base) will exist for various uses.
We use AIX (AIX Isn't uniX) at work, but Big Blue keeps making noises about replacing it with Linux.
Too many flavors.
I do think this move is benefitial to all.
Please don't flame me for bad-mouthing Linux, I'm a diehard Linux admin myself but I still think Linux has much to catch up in enterprise computing.
We've a Linux cluster which has a critical bug in mounting the share disk which has filesystem. Sometime when one node down the mount point is not released to another node which is supposed to take up the process, thus result in critical failure.
This is all kernel problem(or limitation), and we don't have problem with non-fs type disk(raw disk). Therefore we must use raw disk where possible in cluster, but we don't have choice when some apps require a filesystem(e.g. like infracture database in Oracle's forsaken Real Application Cluster (RAC). Good name huh)
The engineer who diagnosis this problem told me they've no such problem with similar setup with solaris so they THOUGHT it's okay in Linux. Ahem, there goes millions dollars for paying their great product(*cough* Oracle RAC *cough*).
I expect more of such problems could be solved when those companies specialized in enterprise bringing back good stuffs to Linux, and GPL.
(ring ring) ..."
scott: "hello?"
bill: "what the fuck are you doing?!"
Scott (sweating, scared): "well I, err, I just, thought.
bill (slow calm and menacing): "yes?..."
scott (smiles): "I'm going to fire the fucking idiot who aired this dumb idea in public."
bill: "have a nice day."
scott: "yea, thanks bill. Thanks."
(ring ring)
scott: "have someone in marketing killed and his hands delivered to Bill Gates"
lackey thug: "It's done."
So do analog TVs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is surpassing the U.S. with digital cable/satellite systems and high definition video.
It's one thing to stick with what works. It's another to stick your head in the sand and ignore the changes going on around you.
It's a little like buying a camera, I think. You could bite the bullet and get a digital camera and be on top of the technology. Or you could pretend like you're above the fray and go with an outdated and obsolete film camera. Like I said, leave the old tech for the hobbiests, they don't mind using older stuff.
I have been pwned because my
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.
He's quite right there, though.
(a) Businesses don't want more source code. Well, to be strictly accurate they don't want to have to manage, worry about, maintain, etc more source code than they have to. I think that given the choice, most intelligent CIOs would definitely say "sure, we'd love the source and rights to use it" - but would probably prefer not to have to actually do much with it, and face the burden of maintaining changes etc.
OSS alleviates this to some extent by permitting changes to be submitted back upstream, but this only works if you have the resources to engineer you changes "properly" and not break anything else (even stuff you don't use or care about).
(b) If you write for RH9 or RHEL3, your app will not run on a stable release of Debian. Not if it's a GUI app that uses any GNOME/KDE libs, needs a recent QT, etc. It can be made to run by either packaging it with a lot of extra libs (see Ximian's RH8 builds of Evolution for an example of this approach), spending a lot more time to make it handle varying versions of libraries, or forcing the user to update their distro or libraries themselves. None of these are attractive.
I see this as a real issue, but not a distro one. It's actually more about _versions_ - the rapid change of OSS, including APIs etc for major libraries and toolkits, is the root of the issue. OTOH, the same thing keeps "ugly" decisions from hanging around, and permits much more rapid advancement.
I'd like to see a cleaner way of running multiple versions of things in parallel (within the package management systems), as a work-around for this issue.
(c) Also quite correct. Many open source apps do not follow established standards, and often the file formats, protocols, etc are defined largely or entirely by the source code of the app. While these protocols/formats are definitely open, they're not open standards and there's usually not much chance that other apps will work with them.
It's true that you do have more chance of enchancing other apps to work with the formats/protocols, time and money permitting, or enhancing the OSS apps to work with the protocls/formats of your choice. It's also true to say that many apps don't support standard protocols or formats because there is no standard in that application domain, or it's crap. These things do not change the truth of his statement.
Remote desktop performance tends to be bound by network latency and local video hardware performance more than processor performance in my experience. I have P133s with 32MB of RAM that happily run KDE3.2 remotely in 1280x960 - they have GeForce4 MX/PCI video cards, and a lightly loaded switched 100baseTX link to a server on a gigabit uplink.
If they can improve X's issues with round-trips and latency, then I'll be all ears.
I can't see Solaris OS being majorly profitable for Sun either - they sell hardware too and if an open-source Solaris led to more end-user interest in their hardware it's easy to see it leading to an increase in revenue for Sun.
Essentially, Apple's strategy. And not really surprising, since Sun essentially does what Apple does--sell proprietary hardware with a tailored OS.
Question is: has that strategy paid off for Apple? And Sun has more to lose: they have a strong position in the server room, that Apple never had, so Sun would be trying Apple's consumer level strategy out but with their own Enterprise products--results may vary.
--
$tar -xvf
Why does everybody assume that the people who are actually tinkering with Linux and using it are entirely doing it for the status it presents.
I use linux because it's the best tool for the job. The job being an operating system that meets my needs. "rebel OS" or whatever the fuck your theory is is as watertight as a seive. If you want a kitschy anti-mainstream OS, Apple's always been happy to serve you.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Now RMS can go on crusades to let the world know it's not Solaris, it's GNU/Solaris.
Karma: Non-Heinous
In comparison to Linux, the range and quality of hardware drivers available to Solaris is pitiful.
If Sun manages to get out from under the SCO claims on the old AT&T code base and does manage to GPL the Solaris kernel then Sun would be free to port any and all GPL'ed drivers and Linux kernel code to Solaris.
The other alternative would be to add a WINE like MS-OS compatable driver emulation layer, to load XP compatable hardware drivers. In comparison to Microsoft XP, performance would suck. There is no reason why Sun, just like WINE could not have the layer running in user space instead of the kernel, which means that Sun could still use a GPL'ed Solaris kernel and not break the terms of the Linux GPL.
If sun opened up solaris it would be a BSD style license. Fanciful rumor mongering...
Brian Seppanen
Minister of Information and Propaganda
Area 54 The Secret Government Disco Labs Provo
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.)
You don't just sprinkle "open source pixie dust" onto a project and see instant revitalization. GPL'ing Solaris is worth little if Sun still thinks like a proprietary software company.
Open source is about the long-term. Open source projects take years to become truly useful, but when they reach maturity they are more useful than any proprietary software offering because open source fosters a development culture that focuses solely on technical achievement. Contrary business motivations like lock-in and forced obsolescence are anathama, and no doubt Solaris is full of it.
This is the same reason I think MacOS X isn't worth using, there's source code but the development mentality is entirely different from Linux's, and all of the things that make using Linux convenient are not the high priority, MacOS X very much feels like a proprietary UNIX with some familar utilities added. Maybe some day it'll be more usable.
Maybe after 5 years of GPL Solaris it'll become usable. Unfortunately, GPL Solaris is in greater danger of forking because Sun would try to impose its direction on it instead of simply serving as a guide.
As opposed to the original AT&T UNIX license which thankfully prevented companies like Sun, HP, IBM, SCO, SGI, DEC, BSDi, etc. from forking...
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.)
Remember, they aren't pulling in huge $$$$ for licenses for their OS, the way Microsoft is. Sun sells hardware. They have been known to give away their OS at zero/low cost in the past - it's their hardware that makes them the money.
Linux is good, it is very good. But it is not as good as Solaris in a lot of situations - Solaris has been in high end trenches and mission critical situations for a lot longer than Linux. An open sourcing of Solaris under GPL means several things:
a) Linux can benefit from Solaris
b) Solaris can benefit from Linux
c) Extensive code review of Solaris by the world probably won't hurt efforts to further improve security.
TREMENDOUS positive PR for Sun from an often ambilivant open source community, and a rush to make sure all important open source software runs flawlessly on Solaris (harder to test now since fewer people use it)
Problems to be delt with:
a) Making sure they have the legal rights to open source everything (of course)
b) Export restrictions? Not sure how this plays out for Solaris - since Linux is out there already I can't imagine the use of restricting Solaris (which is probably also out there, just not legally) but the government is known for a lack of common sense in such cases.
c) Fear of management that giving up ultimate control of all versions of Solaris will somehow be harmful.
Issue a) was one of the major problems when considering opensourcing BeOS - don't know how Solaris stands on such an issue.
But I think on the whole it's silly for Sun to try and compete with Linux head to head with a commercial OS - what's the point? Sun sells hardware and complete solutions, and generally does very well. If they can say "well, Solaris is GPL just like Linux, incorporates features X,Y, and Z that users generally cite as reasons they want Linux, and is proven and stable to boot" they get to just support Solaris again, and not have to worry about figuring out Linux. If that makes Solaris more widespread, what harm does that do Sun? It's not like Microsoft is going to pick up Solaris and incorporate it. Infighting among Unix like systems I think is fairly pointless in this day and age. Linux has made high priced commercial Unix licenses non-viable. So for companies like Sun, who sell hardware and solutions anyway, why not go with the flow on this one?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
For the period ended September 30th, the two cash cows of Client (i.e. Windows) and Information Worker (Office) produced operating income of $2.48 billion on revenue of $2.89 billion, and $1.88 billion on $2.38 billion respectively.
MSN lost $97 million on $531 million, CE/Mobility was out $33 million on $17 million revenues (always a good trick, this kind of stuff), and the home of Xbox, Home Entertainment, dropped $177 million on revenues of $505 million. Business Solutions, which includes Navision and Great Plains, and is a sector Microsoft hopes will contribute great things in the future, lost $68 million on $107 million.
They can already use drivers from the BSDs, and the code is 10x easier to read and do anything with than linux drivers. Sun would benefit not at all from device drivers, they are a company with a closed source product and a name, they can just ask the hardware manufacturer for the docs, sign their NDA and write a driver. How on earth could you possibly think drivers are linux's big asset that sun would want, and how on earth could you possibly think sun wants or needs drivers in any way?
With NeWS (and Display Postscript), the widgets are drawn using PostScript commands. When you click on a button in X, it sends a message to the app, which then draws the widget and sends it to the X server. When you click on a button in a PostScript display environment, the button redraw is handled by the interpreted script, and a single event is sent to the application triggering an event. Interface latency is a lot lower, since the interface drawing is all handled by the terminal.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
According toi ndows bring in 61% of the profit for Microsoft.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-966219.html
W
Remember Netscape?
This could very well be Sun Microsystems assuring that their product line lives after they do.
They scrapped the Sparc V processor, and let Microsoft start marketting the MSVM again.
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.
And of course every UNIX software package is available for all of these because they are practically identical.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
A while back I had a phone interview with the product manager of Solaris. I asked him if Solaris would ever be Free Software (or at least open-source) someday. He said that you can get the Solaris source if you need it, but it can never be under the GPL or similar Free Software licenses because they use so much code from other companies that contain trade secrets and otehr things that Sun hasn't the right to "give away." He specifically listed Kodak as one example because Solaris 9 includes code that Kodak wrote and licensed to Sun -- it had something to do with color matching or something like that.
I guess they could GPL Solaris minus the third-party proprietary code, whatever it may be, but then you're not getting the real Solaris anymore.
Novell ran into this problem when they bought the rights to the UNIX SVR4 source. There was some talk at the time of making it GPL, but there were so many agreements with vendors like Intel and Sun that prohibited opening up the code that it was impossible to accomplish.
Sun should have opened up Solaris years ago, if it were possible. Then people could have manipulated the source according to their needs and Sun would have sold more hardware as a result. Solaris adds value to Sun hardware -- that's its sole purpose -- and Sun missed the chance to really capitalize on that.
-JemHey if you don't want to release the source you can (and probably should) do a static build, and not dynamic, so the end user doesn't have to have ur specific version of the libs installed, unless it has a fairly stable API, and is common on most distrobutions
Performance figures should include the time it takes for procurement to flip enough burgers to afford a Fibre Channel interface card and Fibre Channel drives. Serial ATA is cheaper than FC and thus requires less burger flipping.
I feel it's necessary to offset you bigoted statements with regard to the Mac OS X doc only because someone who's not familiar with the Mac OS X environment might accidentally believe you.
So, for the record, the OS X Dock is just fine. It's handy, flexible, functional, and unobstrusive as you want it to be since it's also configurable. I've been using Macs since 1987, BTW, so it's not like I'm a newbie with them
I suspect you are pundit. Is "Minna Karai" a pseudonym for "John Dvorak"?
--Richard
for those interested, this is a cool solaris resource too, as well as the software companion cd from sun.com:
http://www.sunfreeware.com/
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November