Slashdot Mirror
Where Is Sun Going With Linux?
jg21 writes "LinuxWorld has an interview with Sun's head software honcho John Loiacono which provides an opportunity to gauge Sun's intentions with regard to Linux in particular, open source in general, and where Solaris fits in. In spite of the assertion "Sun was founded on the principle of open source. We have contributed more lines of open source code than any other entity on the planet except for Cal Berkeley," Sun seems to view Linux somewhat grudgingly, judging from Loiacono's tone: "Linux is something that we'll have to interoperate with because it may exist far beyond whatever Solaris turns out to be." An important read, if only because a Windows-free Loiacono notes that he's been using the Linux-based Java Desktop System for a year. "It is not perfect by any means," he concedes though. Refreshing honesty from Sun's top software exec."
Sun has given away more (important) source code than any other company. They contributed to BSD Unix, defined many of the later UNIX sysv standards and gave them away. They created RPC's, NIS, NFS, xview. All of it was given away under a very liberal licence. UNIX and thus Linux would have been dead without Sun. Many Linux users are scandalously ungrateful and have no sense for UNIX tradition and history.
Also, Solaris is a pure and clean UNIX. I can imagine that it must hurt the engineers of such a beauty that they are surpassed by a "bastard" UNIX. However that is a reality they shall have to live with. But I can understand their hesitance.