Sun COO Schwartz Promises Open Source Solaris

Alapan writes "According to C-Net Asia, Sun plans to make Solaris open source soon. While I hardly expect Sun to make it GPL compatible, I wonder how much restrictions Sun will place on distributing modified solaris systems. And will we some integration of Solaris' strong points into other open source OSes like Linux and BSD?" Update: 06/02 14:16 GMT by T : Correction: Schwartz is Sun's COO and President, but not CEO (as the headline originally had it).

Comments

Re:I could make a joke but i won't (or maybe i wil

[stratjakt]

do they think they can pull off a profit from providing support services

Yes, they have the experience and cred in the industry to do just that, unlike Red Hat who were (are) viewed as an upstart by many CTOs.

One thing holding back the adoption of Sun (and it was true in my office when we started looking to replace HP-9000 MPE based systems) is uncertainty as to the future of the OS. If we drop a boatload of cash into a bunch of Solaris boxes, and MSFT buys up and dissolves Sun tomorrow, then what?

Hell forget the hardware, what happens to our all our apps that we've tightly integrated into Solaris? Do we port all that stuff yet again to another unix?

With the source, that worry is gone. This is why Linux is succeeding, and because of Linux and the various free BSD's, folks who write checks are nervous about proprietary Unixes. Thing is, they want the support and expertise of a company like Sun, but they see the value in the openness of systems like Linux.

This is a very smart move on Sun's part, it'll push a lot of folks onto their side of the fence, and they should net a metric assload in support contracts and hardware sales.

Massive security holes will be found

[justanyone]

Please don't flame me! I love Solaris!

BUT: I humbly predict that when Solaris is opened, people will pour through the code and find (a) many old security holes, unpatched, and (b) many new security holes, due to the number of eyes on the code.

This will probably result in:

• Frequent patching for a while;
• Frequent security alerts for a while;
• Many hacks into existing unpatched systems;
• Cross-polination of good (security and other) ideas from Solaris into xxxBSD and Linux;
• Gradual settling down of security problems to even lower numbers than before.

This is not a dire prediction - Solaris is already Pretty Damned Secure - and it'll be an unmitigated Good Thing once the initial flurry of patches come through. I'm just concerned for the interim timeframe when "Security Through Obscurity" goes away and hasn't yet been replaced by "Security Through Code Quality".

--Kevin (at justanyone dooooooooootttt cooooommmmmmm).

PHBs aren't clueless, they just want a boat

[potus98]

...But somehow clueless PHBs just love discounts.

Sometimes true. But it's worth mentioning that many PHBs (purchasers, CFOs, etc.) are fincancially rewarded based on the percentage or number of dollars "saved". Sure, it may not be the best technical (or financial) solution for their business, but if they are able to negotiate 30% savings on solution A versus 10% savings on solution B, they may get a much larger end-of-quarter bonus if they "save" the company the 30% by choosing option A.

You may want to chat with the folks (read: Board of Directors) who establish potentially counter-productive incentives like this.