Slashdot Mirror
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).
Doesn't anyone else find it strange that we have a Microsoft and Sun deal and now Sun starts touting, "You should not be using Linux, as some day we are going to be making Solaris open source." Yeah sure but are we certain that "some day" will arrive? It has long been a tactic of M$ to announce something as being "almost ready" to forestall interest in a competing product that they really have no answer for. Then by creating enough uncertainty and doubt, they repeatedly harm their competitors with vaporware announcements.
I wonder if sun will accept comments on their system from those who write linux and BSD?
Evolution or ID?
Open Source Java is on its way?
Just yesterday we were talking about this...which just leaves me saying huh!? Unless they meant Shared-Source and not really OSI-Style open source...
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
So if the software is free and the hardware is free...
1. give away everything
2. ???
3. profit!
no seriously, do they think they can pull off a profit from providing support services a la red hat, or will they try to squeeze profit from their other software offerings? makes no sense to me... have then gone insane?
Sun's idea of "open source" is sometimes a peculiar one. What license will Solaris be OSed with?
Great news though... free hardware AND software from Sun. How does Sun make money? Volume!
Well, when I say excel, I should really say it in the past tense. Being, really, since the SPARC platform went PCI the whole thing went downhill. But, sun still has some good offerings on the hardware side, and are (supposedly) working on new ones. I think building your own CPU is orders of magnitude harder than writing a "Yet Another Unix Clone" (especially now).
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
...Considering how they licensed their Gnome-based Java Desktop System. And that software was LGPL to begin with! Pray tell, what kind of god-awful monstrocity of a license are they going to come up with Solaris!?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
"Look, you only need to look at what we've done with Java to understand how Sun views the value of incorporating community feedback. Java could not exist if only Sun is supporting it. It exists because there are hundreds and thousands of partners. We need to now take the model with Java and bring it to Solaris," he said.
... according to Mr. Schwartz, Solaris will be open source soon, just like Java is open source today. Evidently this is some new definition of "open source" that I was not previously aware of.
Ok, so
I want some of whatever he's been smoking.
It's a shame, because if they would truly open source Solaris and Java, the open source community would rally around both products and actually help Sun get out of the death spiral they seem to be in right now. If they have any doubt about that, all they have to do is look in their own source repositories to see how well it's worked for OpenOffice.org.
Sun needs a regime change. The current crop of morons are not fit for management.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This is an epic thing. If Sun does what Sun usually does and makes Solaris available under the BSD style licenses this will boost all unix like OS's. However I think they will end up using a Sun specific license (one that was developed for this specific purpose). I also think they did this because by opensourcing solaris they can start some serious cutbacks, a large amount of the OS can be handled by the community, and this might be a major cost cutting move motivated to save sun's ass.
Solaris has probably the best security and stability out of any of the widely used *nix's. Not to mention the superior threading of the actual OS and its core.
However the article makes mention of using something similar to java's licensing, which is *NOT* open source in any way shape or form. This sounds like another wait-and-see thing from the leader of wait-and-see (although not leading in much else these days.)
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
I don't know, but in my humble opinion, Solaris has a lot more going for it than does Linux. No, this isn't meant to be a troll or flamebait. I've used Solaris since 4.1.3 and through 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, and now 2.9 and can tell you that this is a really nice operating system. Simple, logical, and extremely robust. Granted, I've used it on SPARC machines and that is where it really shines. I have used 2.7 and 2.8 on the intel platform with decent results. Maybe it's just the familiarity and comfort level associated with working on Sun hardware, but Solaris is solid and a dream to work with. I've used (and still do) RedHat and SuSE and though they look good, and in many cases is more suited to the intel platform, I can't believe that if Sun took to making Solaris more available that more folks wouldn't use it. I know, you need applications and other vendor support, but still ... this is welcome news!
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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Jonathan Schwartz is Sun Microsystems' president and chief operating officer, not CEO as the title, "Sun CEO Schwartz Promises Open Source Solaris" suggests!
Solaris may end up open source, but you are going to find it work very much like Java.... if you want to make your own implementation, you have to follow VERY VERY strict guidelines as to maintain PERFECT compatibility.
I am sorry, but I dont want another linux mess, where there is a "Debian Solaris" and a "SESolaris", etc. I am happy with a single one... maybe two... for workstation and server.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
sun hardware: $0
solaris: $0
java: $0
watching the Sun go down: priceless
Yes because C/C++ are such unsuccessful disasters. We wouldn't want Java to be anything like those languages.
"else we'll have a dozen forks that won't play nice with each other." That's what we have now. They're called JDK releases.
Why? I dont see PHP, Python and other OS languages having this problem, why should Java?
As a community, the OSS kernel writers need to be very wary of this. Let's try this scenario:
1). Sun releases its code as a "open" with a non-GPL compatible license, possibly a license that states clearly that you cannot use the code in any other product.
2). OSS kernel contributor writes something similar to a Solaris feature into his patch, having read or not read the Solaris code, just because it "makes sense".
3). Sun pulls a SCO and starts suing everyone they can find for the misuse of its IP.
This move could very well poison the free kernel projects out there.
They may not be unsuccessful, but the (sometimes wildly) different implimentations of C++ turns my stomach a bit. I think the way C++ evolved into its "stanard" over the 90s was analogous to watching a car wreck in slow motion. C++ is very, very powerful but also very fragmented by varying levels of support of templates, etc, etc, etc.
That said, I think that there could be an "official" Java release similar to Linus's official kernel, which the vast majority of the world use. I think plain old GPL Java would work very well.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
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).
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Because SUN has partnerships with other vendors, they cannot release all of their OS code.
This is similar to when they released the Solaris 8 source code. I believe anyone could download it for some period of time, or at least it was really easy to get (partners || edu). However, even limiting their distribution channel, they were bound by contracts to vendors to not release parts of their code. I.e. a lot of the fibre source was written by Qlogic or JNIC, so none of that will be released, Open Source or not.
I have to think Sun will release their code, since the Solaris 8 code was pretty publicly available for quite some time. It wouldn't be a major step to release the code publicly now.
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.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.