Slashdot Mirror
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."
What is going on with Sun? Why do they keep opening up things all over the board but ignoring the one thing that they have received the most demand to open up?
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)
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.
-EvilMagnus
But isn't one of the whole premises of open source that allowing everyone to look at the code is, in the long run, better than "security through obscurity?" This has always made sense to me. Also, wasn't that Nessus software everyone's been talking about open source until the current version? Besides, wouldn't Java developers have a strong incentive to keep compatibility with the installed base--let's not forget how massive that base is--even if Java did become open to change? Finally, if someone did fork Java and Java were under the GPL, all forks would be GPL also, so potential problems caused by this move would be minimal...
Sun is offering for free (as in beer) the same things that those that are going to pay for support for get with their support contracts. Sure, the free things come without timely feature patches, etc., but the barrier to using Sun software is defintely lowered. For those looking for free (libre) software from Sun, you can mostly get it too. OpenSolaris is an amazing step given the encumberances and continued business model that they had to struggle with. My guess is that most of Sun's customers will continue to pay for support even though they "don't need to." These customers tend to be the ones that believe that a Fortune 500 systems company is better prepared to deal with OS or other software problems than the outsourced IT department of a company that's core business is not software development. Those that get lured in by free beer have the option of switching to full support without changing software bits (unless they went to the libre bits).
With Red Hat, you can get for free (as in beer and freedom) almost the same bits as paying customers get. However, if you decide midstream that you need to switch from a free customer to a paying customer, you also need to change the code that you are running. This switch can be very costly because it disrupts your business.
It seems to me that this is an effort to pressure Red Hat into giving away RHEL. By reducing Red Hat's paying user base, Sun could put them on the ropes a bit. Again, those that feel that they really need support will still pay Red Hat.
Until Red Hat starts giving RHEL away for free, those that are simply going after the lowest (legal) cost of acquisition along with great ISV support and low risk have a clear choice in going with Solaris. This has the potential to at least slow the uptake of RHEL.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
The package came, lovely yellow with the bubbly inside. "A CD-ROM!" I said aloud. "No better, I bet it's a DVD-ROM". I opened it up, popping layers of bubbles to find... a double-sided double-density 3 1/2 floppy. Confusion filled my mind as I pulled out my old 400mhz Pentium notebook.
I ran the included program, ENTSRC.EXE and up popped a window:
"Are you ready?"
"Yes!" I cried, hitting the Y key with orgasmic fervor.
"Are you truly ready for this?"
"Ohhhhh yessssss!" I moaned, banging the key again.
"Please read this EULA. Do you agree never to do anything nasty to Sun, never call it names, or mock Larry Ellison? Do you vow to besmirch .Net and Mono? Will you feed your cat only high-protein foods, and make love to your wife three times a week?"
"Anything!" I shouted, clicking Y one last time. And up it popped.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Looks pretty open to me. I can browse the source online or I can go download it.
And it's all under a license which is quite similar to the Mozilla Public License.
If you think this is "not very" open, could you be more specific about why and how?
Huh?
Really, Sun has nothing to hide for security reasons. Your JDK already comes with the source code for all the public libraries found in the standard JRE distribution -- see src.zip in your JDK folder. And Sun doesn't try to stop you from writing your own JDK and JRE -- it is all spelled out quite clearly here.
The only problem is that writing all this in a clean-room fashion takes a lot of time and effort. You have to write your own JDK or classfile generator (which isn't too hard -- Eclipse already includes its own, so you can make class and JAR files on a system with only a JRE), your own JRE (which is substantial if you want it to have the efficiency of Sun's -- see the escape analysis they're including in Mustang), and most laborious of all: you have to write all the standard libraries that come with the JRE. That's why we haven't heard much from Harmony in awhile, and the cleanroom version that IBM produces is a version or so behind.
Sun is giving everyone, including open-source, the blueprints to Java; it just isn't giving them the assembly line.
- shadowmatter
It sounds like you are joking, but one can never tell here - you are joking, right?
sic transit gloria mundi
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.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Sun is the most significant Unix company in existence, which no one who knows anything about the Unix market and it's history can deny. What true Unix company still exists and is as true to Unix more than Sun? None. IBM, HP, DEC, SCO, SGI, etc. all lost to Sun during the dot com years. HP has HPUX on life support, no new innovation and no will left to survive. IBM talks up Linux because AIX is breathing its last breath. The rest are not even worth mentioning because they are either completely dead or will be any minute. How did things get to this point? Because Unix and the hardware designed to run Unix has been Sun's primary focus for which it has continued to develop, improve and campaign for relentlessly.
I am perplexed by the number of people posting FUD about Sun on slashdot. Who by their comments, clearly know nothing of Sun's financial situation or products. Sun is not going away anytime soon, even if they didn't sell a single new support contract or single new hardware device ever again, they would continue to exist. But that's just it, Sun has not given up (unlike its rivals), it is raising the bar and delivering on commitments.
I am getting really excited about the latest moves by Sun. Afterall, I only got involved with Linux because I couldn't afford to run a Solaris box for personal use. Do you think Linus would have ever been inspired to start working on Linux if he was able to run Solaris for free and it ran on his PC? I think not. And yes, much has changed since 1991 and Linux has certainly grown up. But what many fail to see is that Solaris has not been standing still. The gap certainly started closing rapidly around 2003 with the release of the 2.6 kernel. However, with Solaris 10, Sun leaped even further ahead. And I'm not talking about speed, reliability and scalability improvements, which it certainly had much of. Solaris 10 has features like DTrace, predictive self-healing, containers/zones, ZFS and more. These are completely new technologies. And unlike Linux, Sun's code comes out solid from the day it is released. If you're a developer, I urge you to go look at the source code and compare it to the typical Open Source project's code. I think you will see that the difference is like comparing a donkey to stallion.
Hopefully these words are not interpreted as being anti-Linux. I have dedicated a huge portion of my life during the last decade to Linux, its development and support. I feel ashamed to be part of a community that sees anything different as the enemy or a threat. The Linux community should not feel threatened by Sun or anyone else for that matter. The commercial entities that feed off our community however (IBM, HP, Red Hat, Novell, etc.) should be afraid, very afraid...