Sun Opens Up Enterprise Software

abscondment writes "Stating that "open source is the future" of the software industry, Sun's President and COO Jonathan Schwartz announced that Sun will be opening its enterprise software in a manner similar to Solaris 10. Sun is opening up the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 Management software, and Sun developer tools, etc. - practically everything except Java - hoping to lure more developers and chief executive officers worldwide to use and deploy its enterprise software."

Comments

Their hardwarre's getting better

[EvilMagnus]

The new x4100 servers look pretty sweet - dual core, dual proc Opteron 252 in a 1U low-power chassis. And N1 will work with RHEL as well, so long as it's on Sun hardware. It lets you do complete bare-metal installs from the OS up over the network and remote firmware patches, as well as the usual centralized patching and management. If you have to manage a bunch of similar machines, that's pretty nifty.

Re:Does that include Sun Clustering?

[nbvb]

No, you really don't.

It's like the circus --- just 'cause they give the elephant poop away for free doesn't mean you want it. :-)

Seriously, Sun Cluster is broken. I personally have converted many a' cluster to VCS just to get away from Sun cluster.

Free as in "freedom" "beer" or "strings attached?"

[mikaelhg]

See the license for the new offering:

4. Your Service Provider Use is limited to a ratio of two hundred non-Employees for each Employee (200:1) accessing the Software.

If only someone from Sun would clarify the language, we'd know they're not pulling a MySQL on us.

Java's Source Code is Downloadable

[jonathanbearak]

Java's source code is available for free. See http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/source_license.html .

"I want some software (security stuff) to stay closed-source forever"

The source isn't closed. It's not Free Software, but you can see it. I guess now this means you shouldn't use Java, seeing as all those evil hackers are gonna be rummaging through it.

And if you hadn't recalled, there already was a Java runtime from Microsoft. Wasn't compatible with Sun's Java. Doesn't exist anymore. Trademarks are sweet.

Yes, yes there is a list

[PCM2]

Also, it's not clear to me what they have actually opened up. They opened Solaris, JES, etc., fine. What else? Compilers? Drivers? SunRay? Is there a list somewhere?

Yes, if you read the official press release they give a list. Sun Ray, yes. Compilers are unclear -- but I suspect that by "tools" they mean IDEs and the like and not compilers.

As far as "opening up," though, as of today Sun has opened nothing new, as far as I can tell. It is just "reaffirming its commitment to open source this software," to quote the press release.

Re:You sir are a true genius

[aled]

That's FUD. You can read the source of Java anytime. You can compile it and colaborate on the new versión (6.0). You can't distribute AFAIK. There is no obscurity, all is there.

Re:Everything except Java?

[jadavis]

The problem is that, if they GPL java, anybody on the planet can claim their own version of java "with just a few nifty new features". The presumption is that it must work, because it's based on Sun's code. However, if it's built from scratch on the open java specifications, the burden of proof is on the new developer to prove to his customers that it really has the same quality as Sun's java.

The standard is open. It's not like trying to build on top of Microsoft's "shifting sands" formats. It's a clear specification. Sun is competing on the merits of it's implementation, and it's clearly winning.

It's one thing to create GPL/BSD software yourself, or to ask for open standards so that you or someone else might be able to compete fairly.

However, I really think free software advocates go overboard when they demand specific licensing from a corporation which is already one of the leaders in open source contributions (surpassed only by IBM, if at all). And Sun is a powerful leader when it comes to open standards. And they do a good job of implementation.

One wonders whether the people demanding GPL jvm (and the 100 derivitive implementations that are sure to follow) are really Sun's customers.

Larry vs Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you agree never to do anything nasty to Sun, never call it names, or mock Larry Ellison?"

Mocking Larry Ellison is OK by me, but Sun is run by Scott McNealy.

Re:Fatal exception

[gnud]

When I try to download I get greeted by a fatal exception :(
And based on the download link to Sun studio, I found that the URL parameter "LMArea=nsx" was missing from the links to Java studio Creator and Enterprise. Add that to the end of the query string, and you will be fine.

Re:OK, so we'll open Java

[hey!]

Well, don't forget that Java has been forked: J++. The fork was incompatible. The technology in the fork was re-skinned as C# and dot Net, which is specifically intended to compete -- that is to say to slow or reverse the adoption -- of Java.

The difference between Java and the languages you mention is its strategic importance. That this stems in part from historical reasons and is not entirely (or even at all depending on your POV) due to technical superiority is irrelevant.