Open Community vs. Open Code

snydeq writes "Recent silence regarding the future of OpenSolaris under Oracle's hand has InfoWorld blogger Savio Rodrigues questioning the relative importance of open code. 'Source code availability is a central factor in establishing trust in the open source community, as knowledge that the source is available can often allay fears about the future of a particular open source project or product. And yet, this trust can often be overstated,' Rodrigues writes. Members of the OpenSolaris community have been agitating for Oracle to clarify its plans for OpenSolaris in the wake of its acquisition of Sun, with some suggesting a fork as a way of severing ties. But, as Rodrigues points out, 'The community around an open source project or product can certainly be vibrant without having the resources to support a fork. In fact, this is true for many open source communities, which count numerous members, very few of whom would be qualified to develop the open source project further should a fork occur. Worse, even fewer would be interested in doing so.'"

Comments

bullshit

[pydev]

We want source code under an open source license so that when a dickhead company like Oracle gets a hold of Solaris and Java, we can still continue to use it (which includes fixing bugs, enhancing it, and porting it to the platforms we like).

And even if I wanted to use closed source software, on my lists of companies to trust, Oracle would rank near the bottom.