Sun Opens Up Enterprise Software 210
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."
Everything except Java? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:3, Funny)
I'd rather put it the gangsta way: I mean, your car is broke, your wife is ugly and your daughter's fat. What should should I care? Now gimme that country estate or move along, I don't care about your old garbage that ain't ebay or shit!
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:3, Funny)
Not exactly. It's more like:
Wow, kind sir, you've told me how this nice house, your car, your lovely wife and daughter work - all without strings attached! Why oh why won't you answer the ONE QUESTION I KEEP ASKING ABOUT HOW YOUR LAWNMOWER WORKS?!?
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
That is so true... and even then, you have to go through extra steps now, since it isn't even included in Windows, or in most linux distro's without extra hoops to jump through.
It isn't too bad in BSD (pc-bsd has a PBI for 1.5 runtime)... I wouldn't mind seeing more effort on a unified *nix desktop... I don't think KDE is it, only because the GPL restrictions inhibit commercial apps... thou
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are lots of applications, esp in the Unix world, that also install their own private JVM...
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:3, Informative)
The standard is open. It's not like trying to build on top of Microsoft's "shifting sands" formats. It's a clear spe
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
No, they won't be able to. They will only be able to claim their own version of Our-Super-Language, derived from the code base of Sun Java (tm). Which will obviously not hold water for any decent manager out there, who wants Java (tm), not an imitation of it.
Really, for me it's a matter of convenience first and foremost. The fact that installing Java is not as simple as
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
As for fragmentation, si
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Microsoft has already screwed Sun. Or, more accurately, Microsoft got Sun to screw themselves. Java had a chance to become the de-facto way to create GUI software. Sun had even tricked Microsoft into doing much of the hard work for Sun. Microsoft had a JVM that made creating performant Java software for Windows a reality. Sun had tricked Microsoft into building on their software. Yes Microsoft extended it so that it only worked on Windows, but Sun *owned* Java, and that could have easily been fixed, a
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
I am as far from an MS employee as you can possibly get. I just wish that it was feasible to write desktop software in Java. Quite frankly, it's not. The situation improves a bit thanks to IBM and SWT, but that's not really Java, is it? I want Java to win, but, from where I stand Sun is in the way.
The fact of the matter is that I hack in Java for a living, but when I have to write the GUI stuff I either have to use HTML or use something like .NET. Java really isn't much of an alternative on the deskt
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
Free as in "freedom" "beer" or "strings attached?" (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Free as in "freedom" "beer" or "strings attache (Score:2)
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
The software investment has been made, and isn't bringing them anything with nobody buying, by opening it up, they can maybe gain on the hardware side.. I do think that they will probably open up java
Apache Harmony (Score:2)
This way there still be a need for an OpenSource JVM, and enought interest behind the Apache Harmony project to keep it moving.
Think about it, there is already lots of free JVMs, like GNU GCJ/Classpath, Kaffe, SuperWabba, etc... They're just not 1.4 compilant yet. But they're usefull for lots of tasks, and they're free.
If Sun releases Java under an OpenSource licence, it will kill the Harmony Project. And as a java web developer I'm ver
Re:Everything except Java? (Score:2)
You sir are a true genius (Score:2, Funny)
Security through obscurity, that really ought to keep computer criminals at bay. To prevent Tom, Dick and Harry (slashdot readers) finding any vulns in your logic, I suggest you keep it "closed source" and out of public internet forums.
Re:You sir are a true genius (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:3, Funny)
Answer: Because the open sourced code increased the number of cheats exponentially.
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean exactly like Python, Ruby, Perl and so on are suffering horribly from all their incompatible forks?
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:3, Informative)
The difference between Java and the languages you mention is its strategic importance. That this stems in part from historical reasons and is not entirely (or even at all depending on your POV) due to technical superiority is irrelevant.
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
Since J++ is no more, we now have J#, which (Microsoft claims) is 1.4.2 compatible. I don't know how much of that is true (my tests compiled without a hitch though). Of course, you *could* go and use
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
Different syntax: not very. Some syntactic sugar like delegates.
exceptions: pretty much what you'd get if java's root exception class was RuntimeException.
static methods: pretty much just enforces what is considerd good proactice in refere
Control of the integrated platform (Score:2)
Schwartz came right out and said it in the press briefing audiocast: they believe that they will get the most value by controlling the integrated platform (excluding other providers from creating integrated offerings including Sun components, or setting the terms of entry to the field) which in their view consists of: Hardware, Solaris, J2EE server, various enterprise management products such as identity management, and (provisionally) the thin desktop. By
Re:Control of the integrated platform (Score:2, Interesting)
They just cannot call it Java. Thus Kaffe, and gcj.
Mono is a
The MS.Net platform is NOT open source. Java platform is more open source than MS.Net. You can download the source code for Java, and depending on what you want to do, have various options. Where is the source code for MS.Ne
Java's Source Code is Downloadable (Score:5, Informative)
"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.
Re:Java's Source Code is Downloadable (Score:5, Insightful)
This gives most of the freedoms of OSS, but keeps the core stable and consistent within the hand of Sun.
I'm not sure if you can distribute patches freely, however (BSD does, but they're different and have a relationship with Sun already).
Save for the most technical pedant, Java is "Free enough".
Re:Java's Source Code is Downloadable (Score:2)
It's not free enough, because it only grants you freedom 0 and freedom 1, the freedom to use it, and to see how it works and improve it.
It still takes away from the user the freedom to help other by sharing the software, and the freedo to share his improvements to the software with a community.
Even though there's the Java community whatever, that takes some pointers by consumers, it's a limited community in its power.
For people who care about "openness", Java is Open Enough.
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2, Insightful)
Sun hasn't stopped people from making other compiliers (Jikes), libraries or tools. As far as I can tell, the only thing they are keeping pure is the language definition, and IMO they did that much better than any larger group could have (the development team was small and focused initially)
Not only that, but they have been very open about the process to add features, allowing community
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
SUN SHOULD NOT OPEN SOURCE JAVA. When they do it will be bad for all involved--NOTHING GOOD CAN COME FROM IT.
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
I don't use python, ruby, smalltalk or a veritable army of smaller, nimbler tools because they are smaller and nimbler! They move. Geeks play with them. I just want to work. I don't want my language changing out from under me.
Why not leave Java the way it is (for me) and you take any of these other tools. As you age (I'v
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
>You can keep running whatever version of the VM you like (and it probably won't be touched at all except for maybe some securiy-critical back-ports). We're not stopping you. I'm talking about Java 3, 4 and 5 in 2007, 2010 and 2013.
I like the bugfixes and slow/steady pace of feature addition (except, as I said, for templates
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
Right now, Sun has control of internet apps/coding. ActiveX/Visual Basic can't really compete....
I say: Smart Move Sun!
You see, a market leader almost always finds it difficult to justify opening up the source to their product. Again, as you put it, it is about control of internet apps and applet coding.
As for the rest of your post... Well, we don't see every Tom, Dick, and Harry writing new and improved versions of
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
ahhhh.......huh? OK lets ignore PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc and go to the heart of it (ActiveX/Visual Basic). Have you heard of this (.NET 1.0) [microsoft.com], this (.NET 1.1) [microsoft.com], or this (.NET 2.0) [microsoft.com]?
I'm not going to sit here and make pointless arguments about better/worse, but I don't think ActiveX/VB is even supported anymore. Wasn't it's final version about 6 years ago? Its not quite as bad as "Sun has control of internet apps/coding. COBOL
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [sun.com].
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
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like you are joking, but one can never tell here - you are joking, right?
Re:OK, so we'll open Java (Score:2)
They have, it's called python, ruby, perl, lisp, haskell, ocaml etc.
Oh and parrot is shaping up nicely as the one VM to rule them all too.
If only Java... (Score:5, Insightful)
And maybe FP? (literally)
Sun getting desperate (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Sun getting desperate (Score:3, Interesting)
Who are they following? When did HP open the source to HP/UX, True 64 (Digital) Unix, and Openview? Or did IBM open AIX, Tivoli,and the Rational tools?
Re:Sun getting desperate (Score:2)
Their hardwarre's getting better (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing, or bad sign? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun Rays! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good thing.
They've finally realized that they are a hardware company, and the software is just the icing that drives the hardware sales.
Their hardware really is phenomenal, especially from the V880 on up (anything that can handle hot-swapping CPUs is damned impressive!).
What I'm personally excited about is the opening of Sun Ray Server Software... the software is useless without the hardware, so charging extra for it was counter-productive.
The fact that it's being opened means support on current Linu
Well it's now obvious why (Score:2)
waspleg
Shot at Red Hat? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Indeed. There is a lot of interest in OpenSolaris right now, but once there are 20 incompatible distros we can expect some serious disillusionment. Heck, some people might even flee for the comfort of FreeBSD.
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
I will believe that when iraq joins opec.
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Re:Shot at Red Hat? (Score:2)
Goodbye Linux market share (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Goodbye Linux market share (Score:2)
There's a huge problem with your assessment, and its the same demon (ha ha) that has been haunting the BSD folks forever. Solaris simply doesn't have the hardware support to replace Linux. In 1995 when I first started using Linux I originally was going to use FreeBSD, but my CD-Rom drive wasn't supported by FreeBSD. It was supported by Linux, and that was all she wrote. Since that time I have set up and administered hundreds of Linux servers and desktops, and have only been peripherally involved with an
Re:Goodbye Linux market share (Score:2)
Yes, and the BSDs support less hardware too, and for whatever reason that leads lots and lots of people to choose Linux, despite the advantages of the BSDs. The piece that the Solaris advocates miss is that Free Software (which now includes OpenSolaris) projects often sneak in through the back door on sub-par hardware. It's o
Re:Goodbye Linux market share (Score:2)
Yes, and most people test drive Free Software before they put it into production. That's precisely my point. The BSDs, despite their huge early lead over Linux, and their extremely corp-friendly licensing, lost out to Linux because Linus was far more practical about supporting crappy hardware. People could "try out" Linux on ridiculous hardware, while the BSDs only ran on serious
Re:Goodbye Linux market share (Score:2)
Egads where to start.
Huh? Back in the day their user friendlines sucked compared to Apple. Why did they win? "Because no one ever got fired for buying IBM." IBM machines had the mind share, MS rode the wave.
You don't know? Who the in the Hell's else fault is it?
Re:Goodbye Linux market share (Score:2)
Your post makes many good points, but I still don't get this stigma. I've worked for quite a few global-scale Big Name companies, and you know who my co-workers were? About half of them were long-haired hippies. Long-haired hippies process your mortgage application, do your taxes, handle your banking transactions, and one of them shaved his head and got to be your president for 8-years. The long-haired hippies
good, but I have doubt (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [crynwr.com]
Let's say I take Sun's source code, add some modification and nice packaging, etc., may I sell it to customers?
Yes, yes there is a list (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, if you read the official press release [sun.com] they give a list. Sun Ray, yes. Compilers are unclear -- but I suspect that by "tools" they mean IDEs and the like and not compilers.
As far as "opening up," though, as of today Sun has opened nothing new, as far as I can tell. It is just "reaffirming its commitment to open source this software," t
call a spade a spade (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:call a spade a spade (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see where you're coming from, and honestly, it feels a bit like that to me as well. Sun didn't make their fortune on open source (although they have been involved with open software and open standards for quite some time), so I suspect the attitude towards it is mixed.
In fact, I recently went to an OpenSolaris users' group meeting at my local Sun facility, and one of the Sun people did mention that open sourcing Solaris was kind of a hard sell with the management, but that the "a rising tide benefits us all" argument did eventually win out. So, are they true believers? Undoubtedly, many Sun employees are, and surely some are skeptical. But even if 100% of them aren't behind it, you have to give them credit for being willing to try new things.
Now, on to the question of whether this is a Hail Mary. My own opinion is that if it were just this one thing in isolation, that wouldn't be a good sign. But, over the last year, Sun has done lots of things that kick ass. Solaris 10 kicks ass. ZFS, which they've just released, kicks ass[1]. (As the ZFS slides say, "ZFS Objective: End the Suffering", and that refers to the tedium of storage management on ALL platforms.) Sun is already working on projects and starting new projects to address shortcomings with Solaris on the desktop [opensolaris.org]. Though they of course support gcc, the newest version of their own proprietary compiler (and dev environment), Sun Studio 11 [sun.com], is now free as in beer. And it's available for both Solaris and Linux, and pretty clearly generates better code on SPARC and is pretty competitive on x86.
Some of their new Opteron hardware is quite cool and cost competitive with similar Dell systems[2]. And they also have their 8-core, 4-simultaneous-hardware-thread Niagara chips.
The point is, like in years past, it can once again be said that Sun is doing cool stuff. So if you want to go with the football analogies, it could be a Hail Mary, or it could be that halftime has just ended, Sun has just studied the films to see what they need to adjust, and they're back on the field and ready to make something happen.
[1] Check out the (PDF) slides [opensolaris.org] about it, or either of the two demos [opensolaris.org], or some of the other documentation [opensolaris.org].
[2] In fact, compare the cheapest 1U Dell server [dell.com] with the cheapest 1U Sun server [sun.com]. The Dell has a Celeron with 256KB cache in a server (!!!), and the Sun has an Opteron with 1MB cache. And the Sun is $745, whereas the Dell is $999. The only negative with the Sun is that it has no disk, but that option is $150, leaving it at $895, still over $100 cheaper than the Dell. Oh yeah, and the Sun hardware is qualified to run RHEL, SUSE Linux, Solaris 10, or Windows.
Re:call a spade a spade (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are so many
Re:call a spade a spade (Score:2)
Nonsense. Sun was sponsoring open-source projects (Xemacs, TCL, etc.) well before most "open source" companies even existed. It's not that they don't "truly believe in open source."
The problem is that a lot of open source fanboys want to view it as an all-or-nothing proposition. If they don't get their way all the time, regardless of the business realities, they whine like little babies.
good for Sun and Java (Score:2, Insightful)
This makes some sense and kudos for Sun. Basically there needs to be a gateway for core modules, just like the linux kernel, but instead the JDK depends on an organization to formally keep it stable vs a community (which can be too democratic). Since Java is free to develop this is a good balance for app developers as well as most core developers.
If you look at it more, the JC
Sun rising (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Sun rising (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that Sun is the only truly relevant/credible Unix company left.
Also, I found that Nexenta GNU/OpenSolaris was an easy way to quickly get my hands on to a recent OpenSolaris build without too much commitment (LiveCD). I'd recommend it to anyone who is curious about OpenSolaris but unwilling or unable to install it on their machine. Once it is out of alpha, I will almost certainly replace my FreeBSD box with Nexenta.
http://www.nexenta.org/ [nexenta.org]Re:Does that include Sun Clustering? (Score:3, Informative)
It's like the circus --- just 'cause they give the elephant poop away for free doesn't mean you want it.
Seriously, Sun Cluster is broken. I personally have converted many a' cluster to VCS just to get away from Sun cluster.
I Remember The Day (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:so.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How much? (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks pretty open to me. I can browse the source online [opensolaris.org] or I can go download it [opensolaris.org].
And it's all under a license [opensolaris.org] which is quite similar [sun.com] to the Mozilla Public License [mozilla.org].
If you think this is "not very" open, could you be more specific about why and how?
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Re:How much? (Score:2)
I don't "hate Sun". I don't give a shit about Sun. I'm just saying why I have absolutely no interest in the products that they're pushing - I already have a lot of very good software that's under a much better license.
And why the Free software community should resist having their momentum disrupted by Sun's apparently generous offer.
If Sun wants to keep their software completely closed an
Re:How much? (Score:3, Interesting)
5(b) You may make a single archival copy of Software, but otherwise may not copy, modify, or distribute Software. However if the Sun documentation accompanying Software lists specific portions of Software, such as header files, class libraries, reference source code, and/or redistributable files, that
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Well, Solaris 10 is a proprietary Sun product. It's no surprise that there are additional or conflicting terms for it. There are plenty of analogues to use; for many years, BSDI sold (without source, and under very restrictive terms) various derivatives of the open source BSD operating system. Perfectly ac
Re:How much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Sun owns the copyright on the code for Solaris. As the copyright holder, they can license it under one license, or they can license it under multiple different licenses. As a licensee (i.e. user), you can choose which license you wish to license it under.
Sun has, for many years, released Solaris under
Re:How much? (Score:2)
If you actually want to know the answer, most of the flak Sun gets seems to be because they intentionally chose an open source license that's not compatible with the GPL. One of the huge benefits of open source is that different projects can share each others' code; witness the synergy that happens between the different BSDs. They have the same license, so they can cherry-pick each others' best features, and as a result th
Re:Oh REALLY? (Score:2)
I didn't say the CDDL "wasn't open enough", or even "wasn't open". In fact, I specifically stated, in the portion of my post that you quoted, that the CDDL is an open source license. I was explaining why other people fault Sun for taking active steps to reduce compatibil
Re:How much? (Score:2)
That's certainly true, but the opposite of what I said would be to say that the GPL was specifically made incompatible with the CDDL, which is not true, since the GPL came first.
See this post [slashdot.org], which I made two and a half hours before your post. It not only addresses that statement, but the other relevant portions of your post as well. (I
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Most significantly, it doesn't honor the most important freedom of Free software - independence from the vendor. If Sun decides to shut the playground gates tomorrow, that's it. If you've grown to depend on any of it, you're stuck inside.
If they don't want to port it to architecture
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Because all other open source projects under the planet are licensed under the GPL, presumably? On the planet where I live, not all open source projects are under the GPL.
Re:Opensolaris: Same old HCL game with 32bit sparc (Score:2)
Re:The ZX was cancelled in HCL, not the the ss's (Score:2)
We couldn't afford too many 24-bit video cards back in the sun4m days, but from what I could dig up on the net, it would appear that the ZX frambuffer was first supported in a hardware update to release 2.3. And support lasted from then until 2.6. So that's 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1, and 2.6 that officially supported it. That's 5 versions, not 2.
Re:Opensolaris: Same old HCL game with 32bit sparc (Score:2)
Even if the licensing is friendly, this is from the company that doesnt mind dropping hardware support in 2 versions.
Huh? The last 32-bit chassis, the SS5 & SS20 shipped in 1995. That's 10 years ago. Solaris 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1, 2.6, 7, 8, and 9 thru the latest 9u7 run on them just fine. Solaris isn't NetBSD. They don't carry support forward for everything. The decision about when to drop the SS5 was probably made back in 1996, when the Ultra's started shipping in numbers. They set a roadmap, and s
Re:Opensolaris: Same old HCL game with 32bit sparc (Score:2)
Unlike the SS5/170's bug which is well known, but needs documentation/source to fix, the Ultra 1's bug is hardware based (unreliable in 64bit mode due to a RED_STATE bug, that takes any real advantage from the Ultra1 that it had). With that bug in mind, it's more or less a turbo'd SS5/170 due to even Solaris not using the 64bit side.
The UltraSPARC-1 64-bit bug is highly unlikely to occur. It's a sequence of instructions that no compiler is going to generate. You have to want it to happen, and hand craft
Re:Fatal exception (Score:2, Informative)
And based on the download link to Sun studio, I found that the URL parameter "LMArea=nsx" was missing from the links to Java studio Creator and Enterprise. Add that to the end of the query string, and you will be fine.