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Sun to release Solaris source code
According to this story on ZDNet, Sun has decided to release the Solaris Source code under their SCSL (Sun Community Source License). It seems Sun wants to copy the success story of Linux. What do you think about it?
I thought I'd heard about this months ago, and I could *swear* it appeared on Slashdot then, too.
Regardless, this isn't really important to anybody. It still bears Sun's license, which prohibits developers from doing anything with the code and retaining their contribution. It all goes back into Sun's pockets. Their license is useful - it lets you look at the code of their products, which might be very handy in an educational environment - but for real world work, it's only a good license if you don't mind handing all your work back to Sun.
Question: would it be possible to look at how Sun's code does something (say, for example, SMP) and then use the *ideas*, not the code itself, to improve areas of Linux?
Okey, now we are going to see, whether the argument "Linux would die if Solaris was free" has any content. I know, this doesn't mean Solaris is free or GPLd, but how many people will jump ship.
My guess? Not a big number...
The trouble is that a lot of people are going to mistake this for a real open source release. In some ways, it's the nightmare scenario that RMS has been trying to warn ESR of, though I don't think his methods for combating it are the most effective: most people out there still think "free software" means gratis, not libre.
So, how can we spread the word? How can we let people know:
This is a pretty complex message, and getting across even the simplest ones is difficult. How shall we tackle it?
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Xenu loves you!
that /. posted a 'what if' story about that yesterday, and today Sun does it.
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-- Out of cheese error! Redo from start.
Sure, so long as the code's only copyrighted...you can copyright `expressions'---specific ways of presenting ideas, but you can't copyright an idea.
Thus, if I wrote a book about a crazed whaling captain wanting to take vengeance on the beast who'd munched his leg, Herman Melville would have no kick so long as I told it my way, not copying his words or (I presume) too much of his organization.
If the code was patented, on the other hand, it's a whole 'nother kettle of cetacea...
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
What'll happen here is that any "nice" parts of Solaris (and I'm so angry with Solaris lately that I can't think of a one) will be assimilated into Linux and the other open source OS projects.
Reasoning: If you thought getting started with Mozilla was tough from a learning-curve point of view, just imagine how tough it would have been on a much larger scale (like this is). Besides, anyone out there interested in doing operating systems development is already likely working on Linux, and I can't see any compelling reason to switch over to working on Solaris. After all, linux's success was a right-place-at-right-time occurance as much as anything else.
Besides, Sun's instituting Yet Another License, which is always discouraging to those of us who think that the GPL is still the only really honest way to go in terms of open source licensing.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It has been a while since I looked through the SCSL, but if I remember correctly, it doesn't allow derivative works. You can download the source code, look at it, say Gee-Whiz this is neat, you can even compile it for your own entertainment, but you won't be seeing Debian Solaris or RedHat Solaris. You can't re-distribute it.
Heck, Sun won't even accept bug fixes for Java from the developer community. You have to log your bug report at the Java Developer Site, hope people vote for it and that Sun actually fixes it.
It's a little more open (as in transparent) a process than Microsoft's I guess, but it is a far cry from genuine open source development!
Dana
Solaris surely represents a couple of billion dollars worth of intellectual property. Sun's preparedness to give this away at the click of a mouse makes you ask "what is the value of a technology company"?
To me, Sun are saying that source code is worthless without the ability to support that code, to evolve it and to use it to provide value to their customers.
So the value in buying Solaris is not in Solaris per-se, but in the people at Sun.
Or maybe I'm just up myself and they want to sell more hardware. It's important to know whether the x86 version will be available.
I use Solaris, Linux, and *BSD almost every day, and I can't say that this does anything to really change the way I feel about Solaris.
I tend to use Solaris in situations where I either have to have it for commercial applications, or places where I REALLY want Sparc hardware (which is very nice to work with in a server environment). And I use it because it works well and is rock solid.
However, with Linux, and to a lesser extent *BSD (NetBSD in my case), I don't just use it; I feel like I OWN it. It's mine and no one can a) take it away; b) Change it to where I can't stand to use it any more; or c) go out of business and leave my OS of choice unsupported. I'll never have that feeling with Solaris, since it isn't free; either in cost or in the way it's developed.
This sense of ownership has been the prime reason why I've used Linux as my primary desktop for over 4 years, even before there were any hints of good application software or decent emulators.
my 2 cents..
jf
There might be some perusal of the source, and maybe a bug fix or two, but it is not going to make any difference at all
Firstly, for them to gain any benefit from the release they have to have a whole support structure in place, they need a developer mailing lists, they need an open development cycle, open knowledge of what they plan, what needs to be fixed, and an idea of who will do what. Sun are not doing any of this, its purely a dump of the source, take it or leave it. What benefit is that to anyone, including sun themselves ?
Secondly, its not really all that open, the community licence twaddle is just "yet another licence", and at this stage for developers licence fatigue has set in. Why code something for solaris, when you can do the same work for linux, and use a licence which is understood. Sun are giving away with one hand, and due to this licence holding on tight with the other
Sure we all want open source, and this is better than nothing, having the source available makes life so much easier for developers to make their drivers work under solaris, advanced system programmers can read through it and see problems for their products, and so forth. But this type of source release basically benefits existing solaris users. There will be no grand influx of users to solaris coz of this, and there will be no flood of developers helping sun, my only fear is that this lack of interest will be pointed out with a "look, open source does not work"
C.
I sometimes write stuff
If you sign up for the SCSL stuff, please don't *ever* contribute to Linux. The SCSL is basically a non-competition clause, so the lawyers will easily skewer Linux if it is contributed to by someone who signed up for the SCSL. Not that they would win, but who can afford the legal fees?
Of course access to the source helps in the short term developing exploits, but as quickly as those exploits appear in open source they are fixed, making the code stronger. Its a bit of short term pain for long term gain. In closed source such exploits can exist in code for years before anyone finds them, and generally it takes a lot longer for closed source vendors to fix the problems and distribute them once the exploits are publicized.
In my opinion on of the truly incredible things about Linux is that you can make changes to the system and *if* you can convince others that the changes are good they get incorporated and acknowledged as being yours. Once incorporated you can always look at that piece of code and say "I did that, I own that." For me that is the greatest allure of Linux.
Now with the Sun Licence (as with Apple's) you can make changes, but you can never own the change or - probably - even get acknowledgement. And that is the biggest hinderence for Sun's experiment.
anyway....
J
Oh well, no point in steering now.
This is a typical Sun move. In the face of overwhelming odds, they pretend to make the right move. Let me elaborate:
... what really surprises me about Sun is that it seems that they just don't get what the open source movement is really about ...
Why it's too little: Their community source licence is not really open source. They still keep final control of the sources. Yes you can look at the source, but it's not really open source the way the GPL is. They are trying to ride the open source success, not more and not less. Given their history and their (BSD) roots, this is basically an insult to the intelligence of open source developers.
Why it's too late: A few years ago, a true open source release of Solaris would have won them over the hearts and minds of developers all over the world. But now? Who cares. Yes Solaris is still ahead of Linux in high end scalability, but I am quite certain that Linux will catch up with and overtake Sun even in the scalability game within a few short years. On the desktop Sun has long since lost any lead they might have had (check out the discussion about the OSOpinion article yesterday for some anecdotal evidence about this from other Slashdotters and myself) and the basic Solaris installation is rather pathetic when compared to a modern Linux distribution.
I'd much rather spend my time futher developing Linux where I'm ensured that the sources will remain public and accessible to everyone around the world, than fix Sun's bugs for them and not get jack squat in return
What's special about Linux is that there is no "inside" or "outside" to the extent that Linux/Alan don't really match up to Sun as a faceless corporation. Time and again, they have shown that their primary interest with Linux is to make a great operating system and not to cut corners. This generosity sets an example to other programmers and encourages development.
Does Sun inspire the same feelings? Would you, as a developer, contribute code knowing that some giant company was going to make tons of money off of your efforts - and if you wanted to do the same, you'd have to pay them royalties?
Sure, people will look and learn from the Solaris code, but when they want to leave a lasting legacy, that'll be through contributing to GNU/Linux. With Solaris, you're still putting your eggs into one basket. What happens to the source code if Sun goes under? You'd have to destroy the internet itself to destroy GNU/Linux, which is available on countless servers.
I wouldn't say they're abandoning Solaris as a revenue stream. I would assume they make loads off of support contracts, which cover software problems as well as hardware failures. Trust me, most companies would much rather pay Sun what amounts to an insurance premium for support than to pay employees or contractors to wade through the OS code to fix their problem. As long as they control what contributions make it into the standard Solaris distribution (thereby making support no more impossible than it currently is), they'll still make some $ off Solaris. Speaking of the impossibility of supporting an OS, I wonder if they'll impose conditions on firms wanting to contract Sun for support. I also wonder whether they'll maintain their OS subscription program after the release, with the benefit of an easy-to-install precompiled OS. Sound familiar? paisleylad
"Oh, gee, we didn't represent with the chaos!" -- Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle
For those interested in conspiricy theory, here's another possible reason for Sun to make source viewable. Consider this...
Sun release the source, and almost definitly, many linux people being curious hackers, will look around, to see how things work. Then, one of them at a later date includes a patch for improvement in the kernel, which Sun attempt to claim is using copyrighted code from their source. It could be impossible to claim "clean room" situation, if they have looked at it, and even if it wasn't true, it would be a major hassle.
This is actually more likely than you think, as I'm sure Linux is still missing some features that Solaris has, so the possibility of a patch including that feature would be subject to closer investigation. Consider scalability, say a patch is included that makes Linux more scalable, and a lot of the kernel is rewritten to take accord of the new structure/spinlocks, whatever. Then Sun contest that the scalability is theirs, and the kernel has to backtrack. (even if they lost, the impact could be major)
It might sound scarey, but it would be well worth considering the worst case, before looking at Sun's source, especially if you may add something to linux at a later date. If this happened, it could seriously slow, or scupper Linux development, if you have to keep looking over your shoulder at Sun.
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Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
What is funny is that we've returned to the late 60's/early 70's. Back then the manufacturer GAVE you copies of their OS so it would ease THEIR maintenance problems. You had the code. If you could fix it...you did, then gave them the results to share with other users.
Linux (GPL/BSD) goes beyond this though with the viral nature and not locking things up in copyright, so you can use the code as a base for other work.
So I don't see the big deal in praising Sun for doing something IBM use to do 30 years ago.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
While we've known that Sun were going to do this for some time now, it's a pleasant surprise that they're making the entire codebase available. Until now, it was always going to be desktop Solaris that was community sourced, but they were planning on keeping the high end stuff (clustering, massive SMP, etc.) proprietary. Sure, the license sucks, but it's better than nothing. We can still take the best ideas (although not the code directly) and incorporate them into Linux, *BSD, etc.
Personally, I'd like to see DG/UX opensourced. It's probably the best Unix kernel available today, and I'm sure that EMC are going to drop DG/UX like a hot potato as soon as their contract lets them. They were only ever after CLARiiON anyway...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
We could even explain it to NT people by comparing it to NT permissions of None, Change, Full Control, and Read, in that order. (For those unfamiliar, the main difference between change and full control is that the latter can change permissions/owners, the former can't)
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Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Okay, so the SCSL isn't nearly as open as a lot of us would like. But before you complain endlessly stop and think. Last year did you have access to the source for Solaris or StarOffice? Will you next year? This is a step forward right?
Just as ESR reluctantly congratulated Microsoft for their stance on instant messaging we should be praising SUN for taking these steps and encouraging other companies to do the same. If SUN saw the advantage to using the SCSL, maybe if we rationally and respectfully submit our case for going full open source they will see the logic of that soon. But if everyone criticizes SUN for being just another corporation that does not understand open source we are discouraging other companies from even going this far.
Can we really say that SUN has made things worse with this move?
Assuming a lot more people start looking at Solaris code, what will the impact be on Linux from a legal perspective?
It could really help Linux to have access to Sun drivers and perhaps also to glean ideas from other parts of the OS. Does anybody with a legal/intellectual property background know what the pitfalls are? Under what circumstances is it bad to have intimate knowledge of a competing product?
I'm pretty sure automotive engineers are allowed to fiddle with competitor's engines, but chip manufacturers seem to think you need to be "uncontaminated" by a competing product. Who's right and under what circumstances?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I've read the SCSL in breif, and was quite pleased to see this step forward for Sun. Releasing Solaris code will help them to strengthen their operating system, and will allow individual users to effect bug-fixes for their own needs.
;-)
It will not create an Open Source effort out of Solaris, but that's OK. Closed-source is a business model that deserves to compete toe-to-toe with open source. Solaris is a very nice operating system in a lot of ways (though I have little respect for their suite of tools and utilities). It does do threading in a way that I think is genius. It handles multi-processor SPARC systems in ways that Linux and the *BSDs should aspire to.
Bravo Sun! One small step for Sun; one giant leap for Solaris.
If this works out, perhaps they will see the value of going completely GPL and sucking in code from the Linux kernel. Then the waters will get very muddy!
True enough, but I doubt the hardware is, either. Yes, the hardware division is almost certainly very profitable, but I'll pretty much guarantee that Sun makes most of their money from support and services, just as all the others do (IBM, Compaq, SGI, etc.).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
You are assuming Sun is an Open Source vendor. They're just releasing the source code. In all other aspects Sun is a proprietary company. I wouldn't assume they'll be as fast with the fixes as the Linux or BSD communities. I'd imagine they'd have to run things through legal first, then make sure it's tested, etc. Don't expect to have a fix for a problem reported in the morning by the end of the day.
I'd like to make some points:
*) Sun's SCSL license is not open source, nor trying to be.
*) Not all the source code will be made available straight away. Like with their other stuff released under the SCSL, you'll only have to pay Sun money if you plan to make a profit on it yourself. Sun also require you to fully publish the specs for any new APIs you add, and are very hard on compatability - ie they don't want it corrupted/code forked. btw, you will need Sun's compilers to compile it, and they haven't (yet) made the compilers SCSL.
*) I don't think this is really aimed at the general public (of coders) - it's mostly aimed at commercial compains who currently want to liscence Solaris to make their own products, and there are a few, and also at developers who already use Solaris.
*) I think the two main advantages they hope to gain from this is more developer interest, and better quality software - by getting better feedback. The reliability of Solaris is very important to Sun - there are managers whose salary and bonus are tied to it's reliability.
*) This is part of Sun's relatively new, general attitude towards development - first with Java last year, some of their microprocessor designs, some high end software (Sun Cluster Tools 3), Star Office, new software (Jini and Jiro) and now Solaris. I've heard it said that Sun plan to make all their software available under the community source unless there is a good reason not to.
*) Sun have very good reasons to worry about protecting their software - Microsoft would love to damage Sun, like it did Netscape.
*) The descision to go with their "community source" lisence would not be new. Sun have very long lead times on development for Solaris, and because Solaris contains quite a lot of other people's IP (which they'd have to get a new lisence for, or do their own version) as well as tidy up the source for public release, they would have to make the descision very early in the product cycle. Solaris 8 (which will be the first to have some source code freed) went into alpha about 1 year ago, and has probably been in code freeze for about 3-6 months, and it'll be released in about 4-6 months. And Sun aren't even adding that many new features with Solaris 8. Co-incidentally (probably not), when Solaris first went into alpha, was about the time I first head Sun execs talking about making Solaris open source.
*) Some people have said that Sun might be worried about Linux, or Project Montetery wiping them out or something. Currently, as with the past few years, Sun has been having very stable and reliable growth (20-25% per year) and I haven't seen the slightest indication that they're "hurting" from Linux (the opposite in fact) and Monterey isn't even finished yet, and even at best won't take off for another 2 years.
Btw, what's new in Solaris 8 you might ask? Well, they're putting in their cluster tools software as standard (currently a seperate product), doing IPv6, including perl (perl 5.0005_03 to be precise) as well as some modules to access parts of Solaris, some bits for Java, new diagnostics tools and such. btw, Sun will support everything that comes with Solaris for 5 years after they stop selling it.
With everyone coming up with ideas of WHY Sun decided to do this, no ones mentioned the primary reason why they would open it up.
Sun has NEVER made money off of Solaris
That's right.. Not one dime. It costs them more to continue development of the OS then they recoupe in licensing costs. Sure, the license costs can be a bit steep, but that's more to cover the COST OF SUPPORT, NOT the cost of development. It does them NO HARM to open up the source. It's been available to educational institutions for a long time.
That, IMHO, was the deciding factor. They get several things out of opening it.
A: Free press coverage.
B: Free additional hardware support, at least for the x86 tree.
C: A little bit of a cash flow for anyone who uses it to make money.
D: Possible bug fixes to things they've never seen before
The question is, why would they NOT open up the source more earlier? It costs them $0.00.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Again, we have many posts from people speculating about Sun's motives. I really have to wonder what kind of effect Oliver Stone has had on people.
Can we at least ACKNOWLEDGE some things here?
1) Sun is going to be opening up the source to their *FLAGSHIP PRODUCT*. Does anyone grasp what kind of step that IS? People are getting pissy about it NOT being a GPL, or Sun controlling the modifications that get added back into it. So WHAT? Would people rather they not do any of this? What would people gain?
2) Sometimes, centralized control is a GOOD thing. Linus keeps control of what goes into the Linux kernel (to generalize a bit), and this is a good thing- because who better than Linus to judge what modifications are good and what are going to break things, or what mods are just plain stupid? What is the difference between one person and an organization doing so? Is it actually so wrong for Sun to want to try to avoid some keener rewriting a piece of the kernel using MMX asm? Fine, every monkey who knows how to 'gcc hello.c' has the right to alter things the way he likes it, but does that same person have an automatic right to influence the executables that *I* run on *MY* system?
3) Not being accepted into the main source tree does not necessarily stop you from publishing your own mods. Fine, you didn't make it into the real tree. Publish a patch on your website. Let the public decide how useful the thing is.
4) Sun may be releasing the source to Solaris because... wait for it!... they think letting the public at the source is a GOOD idea! Whoa! No diabolical plans toward world domination. No teams of assassins waiting to "retire" RMS or ESR as soon as the public's attention is diverted. Can't something just be what it seems to be? Are there always secret plots behind everything? Scott McNealy has usually been vocal and forthright, sometimes even to his own detriment.
5) This whole source thing MAY NOT HAPPEN. There's a lot of stuff in Solaris which Sun doesn't personally own, and they might not have the right to open the guts of those items to the world.
There's more to say, but I don't think it would matter. Sun is damned if they do and damned if they don't. I'll leave people to return to their regularly-scheduled evil plot weaving.
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Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
I've got a buddy I've been trying to push towards Linux (gently, most of the time). I was talking to him about OSes (and maybe NCs?) in general and mentioned "Solaris". He had no idea what I was talking about (Then I mentioned e-bay and crashes, that opened a glimmer of recoginition).
My Point: anyone who (at this point) uses and develops for OSS would know the difference in licenses is not cosmetic, but cosmic. We'll see, but there's (plenty) enough paranoia about Big Business(tm) in the community and it's dogma to combat these tactics.
+&x
Not really.
Remember, Sun is a corporation that's trying to gain some points in order to combat NT. If Sun actually sued, or threatened to sue, a Linux developer, there would be thousands of people who would vow to never, ever use Solaris or other Sun products again. In fact, this is true almost without reference to any fault on the part of the developer!
This isn't to say Sun is a perfect company, nor that they wouldn't do their best to support Solaris in favour of Linux, but they're not going to sue. Forget it.
D
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It's amazing to me that the folks here are so willing to bash Sun mercilessly for taking a bold and quite significant step here.
Most people here act as if Sun wanted to control everything - look at their history:
- Bill Joy wrote Bekeley Unix, the first widespread implementation of a "source available" modern OS. One can make a good argument that without this impetus, Unix (and yes, Linux is a Unix) could not possibly exist as we know it today.
- Sun built and promoted NFS, which created the entire modern concept of reading/wrinting files over the network as if they were local. Then they did not try to make this proprietary, but made licenses available to all comers, even their competitors - unheard of at the time. This last time around, they made sure to involve many people from outside Sun in setting the NFS v3 standards.
- After falling into proprietary-think with NeWS and OpenLook/OpenWin, they realized their mistake (to their credit) and returned to the NFS model with the introduction of Java. Even that license has recently been opened up significantly, and now no longer requires improvements to be returned to Sun. (The only reason for that provision in the first place was to ensure the the entire community benefited from what anyone added, and was not a proprietary lock, but a non-proprietary lock.)
- Now, Sun is opening the source to very significant software products, Solaris and StarOffice.
It's true that Sun retains some control, but their motive, as shown repeatedly over time, is one of promoting consistency, not control. (Although the rise of Microsoft has pushed them back towards control - reasonably enough, they don't want competitors to take Sun's IP and club them over the head with it.)
In general, there may be some reasons to be wary of Sun, but their past actions show that they have been good stewards. Perhaps they should be given a chance before bashing them.
Sun's desire for "control" in each and every case can be shown to be a desire to ensure that their vision of computing can be carried out, and not co-opted by others with more proprietary intentions. Sun almost single-handedly revolutionized the computer industry by opening things up. unfortunately, most of the objectors I see speaking here are doing so from a position of arrogance and ignorance. Bother to learn the facts before you flame, and keep an open mind, for open source is no good without one.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Finally a non religious post that makes sense. I don't see how this could be interpreted other than good.
As has been pointed out before, SUNs main interest is selling hardware, not selling software. The increased openness of Solaris will make it more popular and will thus boost hardware sales. Microsoft is in a fundamentally different position since they don't sell hardware (except for some input devices). Unlike MS, SUN has no interest in locking up their software. They have no interest in giving it away either. So they choose a nice compromise. Everybody can see/change the source, only if you are going to use it for commercial purposes you are required to pay a license fee.
So what does opensource mean from SUNs perspective:
- public APIs. Since the source is available the APIs are available too. This alone is an advantadge over closed source. Companies like MS are infamous for not diclosing their APIs.
- People with an interest in getting bugs fixed (i.e. solaris users) can do so themselves if they think SUN is too slow (this is the argument that is used over and over to promote Linux).
I think SUN is doing smart things lately. Their community license (which currently is being applied to about anything they have) is great for marketing since they can now claim their stuff is open. At the same time they are not giving it away since they still can ask money for commercial usage.
There seem to be people who are worried that SUN will turn out just like MS. A few comments on that. Both companies are fairly large, both companies are pretty arrogant in their marketing, both companies use all dirty tricks that big companies use to protect themselves. So what. There are also some differences. SUNs products are far more open than microsoft products. SUN listens more to developers than MS (basically all the current Java APIs were developed in an open process where developers had the opportunity to suggest changes).
Of course SUN is not a perfect company. My point just is that they are more open than MS and that that is good for both SUN and its clients.
Jilles
Yes, Sun is trying to profit off of the confusion between SCSL and a real open source license, as others have mentioned, and so we need to do some education to counteract that, pressure Sun to check their marketers a bit, and make sure people know that there are strings attached. Beyond that, I say more power to Sun! If I need to use Solaris, or Java, or StarOffice, for a project, I'd much rather have the source code than not.
As for those who say, "Sheesh, this is just a sneaky way for Sun to get us to fix their bugs for them, we better not let them," I think that if you work for a company that's going to use their products anyway, and you do find a bug, and you're a good enough debugger that you have a chance to fix it yourself rather than wait 6 months for Sun to do it, and if you can fix the bug on company time, then you're much better off fixing the bug, your company's better off, and so I'm glad that employees of companies which are already using Solaris have that option. In a sense this is no different than if you find a bug in Linux and fix it on company time, since you're getting paid either way, and either way you get the good feeling of knowing that you've helped made a critical piece of software is more reliable.
But, you might argue, "Well, if I help make Sun's software better, then they're going to make more money, and we can't have that now, can we?" You neglect the fact that Sun would've made just as much money and had just as many customers with or without your bug fix, and so the only real difference you've made is making life a little bit easier for the community of other users who are forced to deal with Solaris. And after all, that's why they call it a "community source license", because Sun really does want to make things better for their community of users, and hopefully in the end, with your bug fix, and thousands of others, they will have a slightly more reliable product and ultimately make slightly more money. And if that's a problem for you, then don't contribute! Some other Solaris user will likely find and fix the bug you would have fixed anyway.
But what if you go beyond fixing bugs and start adding new features to Solaris? Well, then, I can see some justification for being upset with the licensing terms. Suppose you add some better x86 hardware detection code to the Solaris installer and contribute it back to them. Then when Sun releases the next version of Solaris, they proudly point to their new WhizzyCoolInstall(tm) feature, and raise the price by $200. They sell a zillion copies of Solaris/x86 and cut into the Linux market a little. You're perceived as a sell-out, and nobody's happy, except Sun, and they stop being happy when everybody sees how you were treated and nobody else is foolish enough to add features to Solaris. What then?
In that case, I'd say, "don't do that then." If you have an idea for a great new feature, make it a loadable module. License it under whatever terms you want. With access to the Solaris code, you can easily make it work under Solaris, and you (or anyone else) can make it work under Linux too. If you were planning to release WhizzyCoolInstall under open source, then you weren't going to make any money off of it anyway, and this way, Sun can't turn around and use your new feature against Linux, because both OS's will have access to it. Everyone's happy, and the community of people who have to use Solaris, as well as the community of rabid Linux fan^H^H^Husers are both happy.
Honestly, I'm starting to think that /. has become physically incapable of seeing loaded issues like SCSL in their proper contexts. In the business world, most people are going to be thinking like me, so you might as well get used to it, and come up with some sort of realistic response, rather than "Sun must die." Especially since Sun's going to do it anyway, and their customers are going to be happy, and if you don't look at the issue from the POV I just gave, then you won't understand what happened.
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Jake
will this make it easier to get linux in the door?
By itself, no. Or at least not most of the time. But it does seem to be part of a general trend towards a loosening up on 'source code available' projects be they truly 'open source' or not.
will it alienate some segments of solaris users?
I doubt it. The fact that source wasn't readily available for commercial products like Solaris never really comes up except as brought by open source advocates. I don't think that any arguments that closed source is more secure are going to carry enough weight with any significant number of PHB's to make a difference.
You are right up to a point. Sun isn't going to be a truly 'open source' vendor. And Sun may never be able to match truly open sourced products in terms of speed to respond with fixes (although it seems like for a proprietary company, they are faster than average). However, it does mean that bugs will likely get found and reported quicker, and legitimate people who find said bugs can not only point out the problem, they can point out a solution. Also, they can probably release small source level patches without running afoul of Sun's licensing if they don't include any significant parts of Sun's source.
So while a true open source commitment from Sun would be better, it is hard to see even a partial opening up from Sun as anything other than a good thing.
Quick question: how much do you have to pay for the compiler to compile this free source?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
85% of Sun's revenue comes from hardware, the rest from software and services. Sun's gross margins on hardware are also about double that on software/services. ie they make about 90-95% of their profit from hardware.
(however, their fastest growing devision is the Enterprise Services division - ie supporting Starfire systems... But that's from a small start)
This isn't the biggest deal since sliced bread you realize, Solaris isn't Sun's cash cow. Someone said the other day that if Soalris was open sourced it would be more popular than linux for servers. I think this is true for the most part, for super huge servers linux will work but FreeBSD would probably do it better while SOlaris would do it damned well but until now you couldn't just obtain a copy of Solaris. I see this as more of a push for linux onto desktops rather than big servers where it could do the job but not as well as other things. Sure some people want linux toothpaste but personally I would like to use what works for the job it needs to do.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.