Developers and solution providers might get more than they expect when Sun Microsystems details its plans to open-source Solaris later this year. Sources familiar with the company’s plans told CRN at JavaOne 2004 that Sun is not going to simply open up bits and pieces of the millions of lines of code in Solaris, Sun’s popular Unix-based operating system. The vendor plans to open up nearly all of the OS’s source code, including, “all the rocket science,” one Sun employee who requested anonymity said.
Sources: Sun Plans to Open Nearly All of Solaris Source Code
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There’s no mention of license type nor price (OSS – FOSS).
I think it’s gonna be GPL like, Sun has no incentive in distributing under BSD-like license. It seems sun will mostly sell hardware and support services hereforth.
What about the parts based on SYS V? I thought large parts of Solaris used code licensed from AT&T?
> What about the parts based on SYS V? I thought large parts
> of Solaris used code licensed from AT&T?
They are most likely the parts that won’t be open sourced. Remember that sun plan to open *NEARLY* all of the source (as the title says), not all of it.
“I think it’s gonna be GPL like, Sun has no incentive in distributing under BSD-like license. It seems sun will mostly sell hardware and support services hereforth.”
It have been a bit slow over at groklaw lately. Looking forwared to watch a new lawsuit show from SCO, hopfully starring Kevin McBride singing and dancing.
From what i remember Sun, has the most liberal of all the licenses mainly cause it was equal partner with AT&T in the creation of SVR4 which was after all a merger of SVR3 and SunOS (which was basically sun’s version of BSD)
i’d be happy if they only released the lighthouse application sources as in:
http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/OpenWrite.gif
http://www.petitiononline.com/laafs/petition.html
these would help GNUstep http://www.gnustep.org/ and
Backbone http://www.nongnu.org/backbone/ alot
here’s some stuff being developed
http://maliwan.sf.net/ilogin.html
http://maliwan.sf.net/agenda.html
Will be interesting to see just what happens with this. I this action will strengthen Linux more than anything. Integrating some of the things Solaris does well into linux will make it that more competetive. It could also fragment Solaris like linux so that commercial software developers will be less willing to write applications for it. Hopefully SUN can manage this and create something positive out of it. As a UNIX SA i am still a big proponent of closed-source for mission critical systems.
The thing you also forget is that if the new license is GPL compatable, then Sun can also move things that are better in Linux into Solaris. A merger of the two OS’s might just be better.
If SVR4 was a merger of *BSD(Sun OS) and SVR3, then most of SVR4 is already open source. The AT&T license states that you must protect their source code unless it has already been made public elsewhere. Novel & Caldera (SCOG) openned the pre-system V source. *BSD openned their source. If Sun opens their source, then the only code left for SCOG to sue people for copyrights would be code SCOG added to UNIX.
There may also be some stray copyright holders like Computer Associates that might still hold some code which Sun can’t open.
“As a UNIX SA i am still a big proponent of closed-source for mission critical systems.”
well linux is already running mission critical stuff like in nasa so there is no excuse
well linux is already running mission critical stuff like in nasa so there is no excuse
And look what happend to the Columbia….(just kidding bad joke)
Like i said I personally cannot and will not recommend open source software/OS’s for critical applications for many reasons. Despite what Nasa or any other company is doing.
“As a UNIX SA i am still a big proponent of closed-source for mission critical systems.”
Why? One of the big advantages to open source is the ability of a motivated person to track down a problem seen, and/or clarify an ambiguous interface. When you have your users screaming at you about a problem, and you have to depend on a third party to resolve the problem (and that third party having substantially different motivations), you are in a very bad position. I’ve been in that position both with and without source, and with source is invariably better. Of course, since you presumably work for IBM, you may get the same benefit with IBM’s closed source that we outsiders do not (I was in that position at one point with Unix source years ago when working for AT&T).
“Like i said I personally cannot and will not recommend open source software/OS’s for critical applications for many reasons”
name them
Of course, since you presumably work for IBM, you may get the same benefit with IBM’s closed source that we outsiders do not
Sorry not the case IBM is a gigantic company i work for a very small part of it.
name them
Reason 1. Integrated Software and hardware support. HP-UX + HP9000 Hardware, Solaris + SUN Enterprise hardware etc..
Reason 2. Code is not freely available to review for vulnerabilties and or exploitable bugs.*
Reason 1 is enough to not use Open source software. When these issues are worked out then perhaps Linux will truly be enterprise ready.
* save your breath about how its better to be able to see the source so you can fix the problems your self. Not practical, nor is it cost effective.
“Reason 1. Integrated Software and hardware support. HP-UX + HP9000 Hardware, Solaris + SUN Enterprise hardware etc..”
for someone working in ibm you need better arguments than that. whats preventing open source software from being integrated with sparc stuff. this isnt even about software. its about hardware integration. take a look at how well open source darwin works with apple hardware.
“Reason 2. Code is not freely available to review for vulnerabilties and or exploitable bugs.* ”
explain to me why IIS has more bugs than apache and IE has more bugs than opera. you dont need the code to be open to exploit bugs.
“* save your breath about how its better to be able to see the source so you can fix the problems your self. Not practical, nor is it cost effective.”
find better arguments.
why open up nearly all of it? That would be insane! Why GPL it or under a non dual license? That would be insane!!
I KNOW they will have an open source and a closed version of Solaris for sure, but, keep in mind that now that sun employees have more freedom they can also help circulate rumors.
you know, johnathon schwartyz loves to create rumors and say some things that may upset some people to just see their reactions, as he basis his decisions on the reactions of customers and potential ones. Seems radical, but might possibly work.
explain to me why IIS has more bugs than apache and IE has more bugs than opera.
Were do you get the source code of Opera? That would be really interesting. And beside that, the strongest argument for a lot of people using Opera is not the security, but rather the (subjective) browsing comfort.
“Were do you get the source code of Opera?”
ok firefox not opera but you got the point. open code doesnt mean more bugs or that closed products are safer
opening nearly all of Solaris – hope they name it Sunshine, or something silly like that, as in “Hello Sunshine, what can you show, …” etc
I think that opening the entire kit and kaboodle will help keep it from being either “cherry-picked” or forked, at least for a good while yet to come, while if they take a good look at some of the issues OpenOffice.org had, they might be able to keep from falling into those same problems again.
And opening that source tree will also put it beyond the pathetic “litigation as business plan” business planning of people like the recent SCOundrel Group of Utah.
YAOSSP
Shit or get off the pot already.