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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."
This is a great thing Sun is doing. I wouldn't argue with that. I just wish that they would open up Java also. If only.
And maybe FP? (literally)
Is this a good thing, a great jesture from SUN to be part of the 'open' community, or are they panicking as they go down the proverbial tube?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Java can be protected adequately through the trademark. Unless it is 100% compatible, you can't call it Java (and jusging by the crippled VMs you get on most 'phones these days, they don't even seem to be enforcing that...). Relaxing the licensing constraints would mean I wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get Java to run on FreeBSD, and people could get it working on things like BeOS / YellowTab. At the moment, it's write once, run anywhere (as long as anywhere is Windows/Linux/Solaris x86 or Solaris SPARC).
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You are aware that the JVM specs are widely available, correct? You don't need the source code to follow the specs. Just as I don't need IIS's code to make an HTTP server.
If Sun were to GPL Java, they've have every Tom, Dick and Harry making an "improved platform independant language." They lose the marketshare, and browsers/websites have to start supporting a million little random Java-like applets.
You mean exactly like Python, Ruby, Perl and so on are suffering horribly from all their incompatible forks?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
There are lots of applications, esp in the Unix world, that also install their own private JVM...
I speak England very best
This might very well turn out to be a major Linux killer. Think about it... Why did Microsoft get as big as it did? "Because its products appealed to people", right, there is no question that Microsoft has scored big with their user friendlyness. But why would that affect the rest of the companies? Because in the early days it would be a little difficult to go against $manager who has seen the ease Microsoft offered and concluded "it had to be easy to setup" and "good for the company". After all; he could find his way around the product, why can't the admins ?
Now we're in a period where it turns out that many of Microsofts products are flawed. MS fault? I don't know. Yes, its more populair to say it is but IMO design and design tools are also a big part of all this. Still; it has become a better known good that MS isn't super secure. So now we admins introduce Linux. In some companies its getting a foothold but why? Because its good? Personaly I question this, I think a bigger issue is because its become better known. News reports have been targeted at Linux, bigger IT magazines have written about Linux, Expo's have dared to present Linux and as such its now a product most people know. nice.... Does that mean everyone knows & trusts it? Hmm, no. Its still programmed by (no offense intended) long haired hippies who can do whatever they want. And in a way people are right with that assumption. Just look at what a regular IT manager would say when looking at the kernel development tree: "OK, we had 2 branches (stable (even) and unstable (odd). Now we have one, and companies are to fend themselves. OK. RH has quit with their consumer product (RH9) and their RHEL is too expensive (we could just use MS). SuSE? Thats Novell and they are just trying to catch up. Any other takes? Linspire? You have got to be kidding me!" (experienced situation).
So now I can come up and say "Ok, I present a Unix environment (no, not *nix like) which can do all Linux can but is more reliable in the overal, backed up by a company called Sun and seems much more secure. I can also throw in a Directory Server, Instant Messenging server and a Java portal which can turn our developers completely crazy and all for the same price as Linux".
Sorry but I think I wouldn't be chosing for Linux anymore.
and yes; I didn't include the BSD's in my story because even though I know those are very good choices too the regular IT manager is bound to know Linux before BSD.
And you know why I cheer this? Because I think Linux was a lot more fun when it wasn't mainstream.
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?
Finally can somebody decipher their license, CDDL? http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:9125 :200412:dmcacncfamieofeochbn
Let's say I take Sun's source code, add some modification and nice packaging, etc., may I sell it to customers?
I completely disagree with the security argument, but I do think that it's much better to have a single unified platform.
Sun hasn't stopped people from making other compiliers (Jikes), libraries or tools. As far as I can tell, the only thing they are keeping pure is the language definition, and IMO they did that much better than any larger group could have (the development team was small and focused initially)
Not only that, but they have been very open about the process to add features, allowing community input.
Not only THAT, but there are systems that create their own language based on Java like BeanShell, JavaScript and Aspect Java.
I'm MUCH more comfortable with Java in the hands of SUN than in the hands of a bunch of hackers that want to add piles of unnecessary features--I'm mad enough that sun hammered readability by adding Generics, what would have happened if we had let it become fractured.
If you "Opened" it up, what would stop Microsoft from investing engineers and money to shred it into hundreds of confused, unsupported projects--effictivly neutering it and paving the way for a mono-platform C-flat (what they tried to accomplish in the first place)?
Unless I'm missing something, the only reason someone might be complaining about sun not opening up java is because they have run out of other reasons to bash java and really don't want to learn a new language, or maybe they are m$ sales-scum.
Keep that in mind next time you see a post complaining that sun won't "open up" java.
There are companies that truly believe in open source and its philosophy and there are companies like sun. This is a hail-marry effort to stop their impending demise. Their market share has been dwindling for years and it's starting to tank even more, especially with the linux options. Let me make a prediction now, one day we will see OSX going open source when their market share drops below a percentage point. And it won't be because Apple has seen the light either...
I'm not trolling, I just think we should throw our praise behind companies that TRULY believe in the philosophy not just using it to try and prevent their demise.
It sounds like you are joking, but one can never tell here - you are joking, right?
sic transit gloria mundi
Not only can you see it, but you can build it, tweak it, and even deploy it within your company. You simply can't distribute it.
This gives most of the freedoms of OSS, but keeps the core stable and consistent within the hand of Sun.
I'm not sure if you can distribute patches freely, however (BSD does, but they're different and have a relationship with Sun already).
Save for the most technical pedant, Java is "Free enough".
This makes some sense and kudos for Sun. Basically there needs to be a gateway for core modules, just like the linux kernel, but instead the JDK depends on an organization to formally keep it stable vs a community (which can be too democratic). Since Java is free to develop this is a good balance for app developers as well as most core developers.
If you look at it more, the JCP process compliments this strategy well.
EJB3.0 will give everything a run for the money.
It's a good thing.
They've finally realized that they are a hardware company, and the software is just the icing that drives the hardware sales.
Their hardware really is phenomenal, especially from the V880 on up (anything that can handle hot-swapping CPUs is damned impressive!).
What I'm personally excited about is the opening of Sun Ray Server Software... the software is useless without the hardware, so charging extra for it was counter-productive.
The fact that it's being opened means support on current Linux distros will improve quickly (currently, you're stuck with 2.4 kernels or insane amounts of botching and pasting). People will be able to put together a hotrod Linux box and pick up dozens of Sun Rays for a super-cheap bunch of desktops.
Sun may not make licensing fees from the people who can't afford it, but they'll sell more hardware. This has a cascade effect, considering the word of mouth advertizing that will come from all of the people seeing these devices and asking "what's that?" followed by "oh, we could use something like that too!".
http://sun-rays.org/ is a decent discussion forum for Sun Rays - in case anyone is interested.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -