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Sun Hints At Open-Source Database Offering
An anonymous reader points out a ZDNet story which begins "Sun Microsystems has raised the possibility that it might offer customers its own database, a move that could trigger displeasure at Oracle but curry favor with open-source advocates," writing "Last week, during a meeting with financial analysts, Chief Executive Scott McNealy showed a slide that placed the words 'Sun DB' next to a list of existing database products. McNealy offered no details besides 'stay tuned.'"
What is it going to do what others don't?
Make the PHB's feel all warm and fuzzy. Also see: StarOffice versus OpenOffice.
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Their resources would be better spent on improving an existing open-source db. My personal favorit is Postgresql but hey, it's their money.
TCAP-Abort
Yes! Let's destroy Linux by contributing huge our resources to Gnome and OpenOffice.org!
It's going to be released under CDDL if anything. This in itself denies its use by most of the open source world. *sigh* why does Sun have to keep on trying to destroy Linux and the GPL?
Sigh, Sun is the largest single commercial donator of source under GPL dwarfing IBM, SGI, HP and all the other commercial entities involved in GPL by a wide margin.
Just for laughs and to illustrate how risable your point is at the last count more of the Red Hat distribution had been donated by Sun than any other commercial entiry including Red Hat.
The more I read OpenSource (really Linux) advocates flaming Sun for some imagined misdemeanor or other the more I tend to conclude that Sun has been remarkably forbearing with the community as a whole and that if Sun have been a bit rude on occasions they have been rather less rude then the community right royally deserves.
Lets face it if you were to single out one major commercial player who has almost single handed made it possible for Linux ot exist its actually not IBM, SGI, HP but Sun. They were largely responsible for the creation of the commercial UNIX market, they were almost exclusively responsible for insisting on published standards, API's etc and they have made huge donations to the basic plumbing of Linux.
Sadly these hugely worthy but clearly boring activities are nothing compared to the IBM/HP/SGI eye candy which has little to do with fostering open standards and OpenSource and everything to do with moving tin, SW and services.
Sure they are abrasive but lets face it in the face of the abuse they have received I would be pissed as hell as well, talk about biting the hand that feeds.
So you can't use CDDL code in Linux. So what? You can't use GPL code in FreeBSD. I don't hear the FreeBSD folks claiming that Linus is out to destroy FreeBSD.
And what's this about "denies its use by most of the open source world"? What FUD! You can use it all you damn well like. You just can't mingle it with GPL code and distribute the result.
You can, however, mingle CDDL code with BSD code and distribute the result.
Get some perspective. It's free. It's open source. Yes, the license is intentionally incompatible with the GPL. You'll get over it. You're no worse off than you were before.
It seems that Sun has decided that Linux is more of a threat to it than MS. Sun has competition in the server market from three places; other Sys 5 distributors, Windows, and Linux. Sun seems to have made it's peace with MS by entering settlements with them. The other major Sys 5 distributors are either moving to Linux, moving to Windows, or are suing their customers. This leaves Linux with it's GNU license as Sun's major threat. It is only logical that Sun use it's resources against it major threat, which is now Linux and the GPL. I wonder how long Sun will still support Open Office. I wonder how long Sun will still distribute GNU licensed software with Solaris.
1) Another choice. Maybe a headache for developers who want to support them ALL, but possibly another choice for customers or those who want to support ONE database - Not sure why this one would be better, but why would it be worse? A different set of features may JUST fit your niche. :)
2) Competition against proprietary. More open source solutions, less proprietary solutions. Another backstab to MSSQL
3) Open source = box of ideas. Port whatever Sun database has cool in its code base to other free databases, make them better.
4) Easier portability to other databases for proprietary software. If something uses SunDB and nothing else, having SunDB source you can easily write glue to make that thing run i.e. on PostgreSQL
5) "Do we need"... and does SUN need another not-quite-competitive piece of proprietary software? What is better, dump it or release as Open Source?
6) Open Source replaces negative competition with cooperation. There probably will be quite a bit current Open Source database developers can learn from Sun developers - and vice versa. And since it's no longer a trade sectret, the exchange is possible. Help? Why not?
7) The Name. Having such a name as SUN behind this thing, customers who would otherwise never trust the "bunch of hippies" who write Free Software may adopt it. And then more of Open Source.
8) Is it worse than others? Who knows what will the benchmarks show...
9) Another move towards OS - another example, another encouragement for others to open up their proprietary products.
10) Don't look the gift horse in the mouth.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
You're counting contributions by sun employees semi-officially and/or on their own time. Sun as a corporate entity isn't as giving to the GPL as you have portrayed them.
Really, so you have never heard of OpenOffice just the largest single donation of source under GPL (made by Sun) and Sun still continues to be by far in away the largest contributor with something like 100 full time staff.
Heard of gnome Sun is heavily involved in Gnome. They have made big donations to Apache, Mozilla and a whole range of other OpenSource projects.
Where do you think the NFS source code came from, PAM, XFN ext the list is pretty endless.
Perhaps Sun's problem is that they have given too much and given it in too wide a swathe of areas. Perhaps Sun should have concentrated on one narrow area like say donating a filesystem to run alongside all the other available filesystems with pretty much identical capabilites. Now who was that ??
NFS, PAM, XFN, etc that you list... the standard was set by Sun as an open standard, but the open source versions of them were reinvented on the outside, not donated by Sun.
Wrong Sun has released the NFS source code and they also funded the University of Michigan to do a Linux port.
And last time anyone actually counted Sun had more code attributed to it in the Red Hat distribution than any other commercial company including Red Hat. OpenOffice is definitely a huge chunk of GPL code, but they also didn't develop that. They purchased a dying company and opensourced the company's product. It was a cheap move aimed at poking holes in Microsoft's officeware dominance.
Hardly cheap Sun paid 59.5 million dollars for StarDivision and still employs most of their staff who now work on the OpenOffice program.
Its also hardly dying
How about the cheap move of releasing 500 patents that are all due to expire and calling that a great donation. Did you applaud IBM's donation ???
I know full well about Sun's positions on the matter. I've raised the merits of Open Source repeatedly to my Sun sales and technical representatives, who generally frown at me and hand me Sun company dogma about how they're going to crush linux into the ground, and that open source is just a phase.
You think you do and thats obviously part of the problem. Don't worry though you have plenty of company.