Slashdot Mirror
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
Nope, it's dead. And this time netcraft really does confirm it.
Developers: We can use your help.
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
So we always talk about how companies should open source software that is no longer being maintained or sold... then when a company actually does it, we say "who cares".
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
It can't hurt. As much of pain as it is to operate in mixed environments, we deploy a mix of lighttpd and apache web server for the very reason that even if a major bug or exploit is found in one, about half our front end systems would still be available while the others are being patched.
The more options the better in my book.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
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.
Na, only a few people said who care. I say "Cool, another open source product."
I'll never use as a developer, but another free option is always good. Like someone else said, maybe there is some good code in there. Perhaps projects I do use will benefit from this.
Kudos to Sun.