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Sun Open Sources the Netscape Enterprise Server
An anonymous reader writes "Brian Aker has announced that Sun has open sourced the Netscape Enterprise Server under the BSD license. This is the evolution of the original server Netscape sold in the '90s during the rise of the first bubble. Almost twenty years later, Apache's original competitor is now made available for anyone to use under an open source license."
Wow. Netscape Enterprise Server. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I was actually pretty excited about looking at the code to satisfy my historical interest. There's a lot of old Netscape technology that's bitten the dust over the years!
Unfortunately, this appears to be the modern Java Enterprise Server code. There's even Java 1.5 classes to read in modern XML configuration files. I can't find any sign of some of the really interesting stuff from days gone by. (e.g. LiveScript - a technology that was before its time and thus under-implemented compared to what it could have been used for.)
Still, this is a very interesting bit of history and I'd like to thank Sun and Mr. Aker for releasing it! I'm going to dig through the versioning history and see if there's anything in there. Anyone else here find something interesting?
One thing that impresses upon me about this server is how little code their is. Weighing in at only 13 MBs, it's far too small of a project to be of commercial interest today. But back then, this was some pretty big stuff! ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Those were different products often bundled as part of a complete Netscape (later IPlanet) solution. Those are now sold as Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition and Sun Java System Messaging Server, respectively.
And this code isn't the dead version of Netscape Enterprise Server. It's the core to Sun Java System Web Server, yet another piece of the Sun Java Enterprise System.
Make sense? Next order of business, then. May I have a call for all those in favor of firing Sun's marketing department? (Slashdot crash in 3... 2... 1...)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
NES == JWS (JES) == SunONE == IPlanet
They're all the same thing.
If you license something under the GPL, you have to provide a license to your patents too. It doesn't void the patent, though.
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What about BSD, which is the applicable license in this case?
You may want to come out of your cave. Jon Schwartz is the CEO and has been for several years.
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This is not the original Netscape code that is being open sourced, it is the current Sun Web server that has its roots in the Netscape Web server. I doubt there is much of the original code left.
what is not clear is that this is just part of Sun's strategy of outsourcing ALL their code. For example the Sun Application server is outsourced as Glassfish, Directory server is OpenDirectory and the SeeBeyond stuff is going into open source components of JavaCAPS.
Interesting the way the licensing is going, earlier outsource efforts were CDDL, then GPL, now BSD. If this keeps up slashdotters are going to have to find another company to bitch about.
A company I worked for used NES. I think developer licenses ran about $10k each. Add the annual support and maintenance, and that was some real cash.
So we switched to something cheaper. Looks like we weren't the only ones!
No, outsourcing means using an outside contractor. Most firms outsource cleaning and security, for example. Offshoring is outsourcing overseas. In this case the GP was trying to imply that Sun is outsourcing code maintenance to the OSS community as a way of cutting costs.
Nick
Well, Sun did actually fire a large chunk of their marketing department about 2 months ago. A third? A half? In any case, they certainly weren't overlooked in Sun's plans to fire 6000.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is the core of the Sun's current Webserver 7. The submitter linked to a blog that described it as Netscape Enterprise Server (it's great-great-grandfather) rather than the blog that clearly points out Sun open sourcing the core of their current Webserver is misleading.