From a very personal and revealing interview with ex-Sun executive Danese Cooper: “The prevailing open source wisdom is that Linux is going to win, and anything you do that doesn’t directly influence Linux in a positive way is not a good thing. We spoke to Linus Torvalds about this once, the OpenSolaris team, and he expressed interest in the project as a way for him to be able to get the Open Source community around Linux to move to a higher level, you know, to match some of the advantages that are in Solaris. We were talking about a virtuous cycle where Solaris gets better because of the places where Linux is better than Solaris now. Like especially for one and two processor performance, and Linux gets better because of the places where Solaris does better now. The beneficiary is the consumer.”
A very insightful interview, lets just hope Danese can bring to Intel what she brought to Sun. I am aware of Intel wanting to open up some of its telephony hardware and other drivers. Lets hope Danese has a part in that.
he’s the one trying to polarise the open source kernel development community.
Some common sense in the sterile Linux/Solaris rivalry.
I truly hope that both Solaris and Linux can become better OSes though the collaborative nature of Open Source software.
Lot’s of talk, little action. The reality is that Sun plays lip service to open source but the little Wendy’s lady is still asking “where’s the beef??”.
Java? Not Open. Never will be, even though partners, customers, developers have asked for it. Nope.
Solaris? Promises, Promises. Until there is code there is only talk, which is cheap. Q2 will turn into Q4 will turn in Q1 06. By then no one will care.
Before Sun can engage in a discussion of open source, they have to have some. Don’t quote me NFS, thats ancient greek.
Lot’s of talk, little action. The reality is that Sun plays lip service to open source but the little Wendy’s lady is still asking “where’s the beef??”.
http://www.opensolaris.org
Source to one of the primary new features in Solaris 10 is there already. There are over 35 different pilot teams right now that have the OpenSolaris code.
SUN unlike some companies, isn’t just throwing code into the wild. They’re slowly building this into a community project that can take on a life of it’s own before they release what they have to the public.
There are legal indeminifcations, documentation, and all kinds of not so wonderful things they’re having to go through right now to make OpenSolaris a reality.
OpenSolaris is real, it’s coming, and it’s open source.
Stop spreading FUD.
Very true. I think the interesting thing will be the PowerPC port, and whether, if there is significant demand, whether they’ll be willing to provide it as a product under the SUN brand.
You are right; look at what happened the last time a company simply just threw code out there and the project died – namely, Netscape’s attempt to opensource – it was so crappily managed that a whole NEW code base was written from scratch – SUN doesn’t want a repeat of that mess.
Personally, I’m not a Solaris fanboy or user – too many problems, crappy hardware support, crappy selection of software, and all round lack of any firm, concrete direction for Solaris by SUN.
openoffice.
Personally, I’m not a Solaris fanboy or user – too many problems, crappy hardware support, crappy selection of software, and all round lack of any firm, concrete direction for Solaris by SUN.
Ehm.
– Solaris is not about running it on your little home x86 box.
+ Solaris is about running mainframe with 100 cpu’s 24/7 with hot-swappable components. Something that has 100% uptime. Something that you can trust your bank transasctions on.
Linux fanboys have really hard time understanding that, while their own favourite OS can’t do it? (psst. 2.6.11.5 & 6 again “multiple local root fixes”).
When SUN guys talk about Linux they always lie. example of this is our friendly Jonathan who lied in multiple interviews and blogs that Red Hat Linux was proprietary and not LSB compliant
Of course he wont show you a single proprietary software or read /etc/redhat-lsb
”
http://www.opensolaris.org
Source to one of the primary new features in Solaris 10 is there already”
the next thing you knew sun people would naming failed projects like sunsource.net. a bunch of code and a few projects isnt Solaris that Sun is open sourcing for the past 5 years or is it?
what about commitment to your platform. how many times would you stop and start support on x86. isnt three already enough?
I just don’t favor the idea of Linux (i.e. mainly the kernel) leaning towards whichever company or OS. I am just pretty negative in what concerns the future of Linux as a realy FOSS operating system if such leanings might occur. No company has had ever really a heart for doing entirely and faithfully FOSS unless that company has always been on the side of FOSS development. Companies always have future big income in their sight and always struggle to develop whatever that would mean achieving that goal. So it isn’t in any imaginable way peculiar that Sun behaves towards Linux now as friendly as they see it possible. I am just quite un-optimistic regarding the contancy of this behaviour in the further future.
Little wonder Java is the complex beast it is today. Everytime I use Java, I ask myself one question. Why did they have to make it so complex? One only needs to contrast truly open source languages like Perl, Python or Ruby and compare it to Java. Then, the difference between designing a language in a lab as opposed to the real world becomes evident.
I need to mention one is an order of magnitude more productive in these truly open source languages than one will ever be in Java. Unfortunately, the truly open source languages lack the power tools that make developing and deploying large projects easier.
It was actually refreshing to see someone from Sun talking about the real issues which Sun had always had with Open Source. My skepticism regarding Sun and Open Source software has always been based on the historical lack of community openness and engagement. That is not to say that there has never been any form of community around Suns product offerings-but historically there was little in the way of community drive Open Source software development.
I remember when Sun released Solaris 7 for x86 which, IIRC gave read-only access to some of the source code. I like a lot of people ordered the $10 Solaris 7 x86 package to see what Solaris was offering and get a taste of Sun’s technology. In the space of a year a community was developing around Solaris x86-only to be shot down by policy decisions at Sun. Sun waffled back and forth leaving the burgeoning new community high and dry.
Now Sun seems to finally be taking the step towards embracing community development. This is and always has been the acid test for determing how serious Sun is about Open Source-if and only if strong development communities flourish, communities within and beyond Sun working together, does the Open Source rhetoric of Sun have any real meaning. The article illustrated just how foreign Open Source development has been to those working inside of Sun-which has been obvious to many for a long time-despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
I was never all that impressed with Sun having open sourced Star Office-at once I was thankful that someone had done it and that we could all profit from this -but Sun didn’t write Star Office originally and although the code has now, many years later, been mostly rewritten, it has been rewritten by community of developers, which, unfortunately, is still mostly Sun developers. Even after several years the OpenOffice.org project is still struggling to form a sustainable development community beyond Sun. Some of this of course is due to the monumental hurdle, which has to be overcome, of even grasping such a huge code base-the sheer size of the code base is discouraging for many would be contributors.
But much of the resistance for broader adoption has been founded in misgivings about Sun and how Sun does ‘community’-even though openoffice.org is exceptionally open-in fact so open that it is Free. On that not is is really neat to see how Sun people avoid the word Free like the plague. I am not saying this to criticize the degree of ‘openness’ of Sun’s licensing-but rather that Sun, as presented by those who speak for Sun, is still incapable of dealing with the community at large-if only due to the fact that they cannot bring up the word ‘Free’ as in Free software.
I am only commenting on the rhetoric used here- Sun does not have to release Free Software to deal with the Free software community. But as long as they must avoid the terminology of the Free Software movement-and they do this by speaking so generally about Open Source that they say virtually nothing-or by dancing around the differences and the distinctions which count, they are still failing to embrace the community. I would have so much more respect for Sun if they would simply address the reality of Free Software-this does not imply that they must or should release software under the GPL-but that their rhetoric spoke about the specific merits of their understanding of Open Source in relation to Free Software.
The dance to avoid the terminology is comical at times- sometimes they simply refuse to acknolowege that their is such a thing as Free Software, sometimes they try to paint their understanding of Open Source software as being Free Software by their refusal to acknowledge that there are differences, sometimes they confuse Open Source with open standards, sometimes their view of Open Source sounds like hippie idealists talk of the 60’s, and sometimes they attempt to portray Free Software as actually being propietary-but at no point do they speak about Free Software as Free Software.
Too many of the people at Sun, for too long, were the kids who said ‘you can’t play in my sanbox-it’s mine and only my friends can play here’. Things are changing. Perhaps this time around Sun is finally ‘getting’ it-ie. grasping the differences which make a difference. But until Sun is capable of dealing with Free Software as Free Software, and the tell-tale sign is how they talk about licensing, I will remain skeptical about their community endeavors. If the Sun community was self-confident enough, ie. believed enough in what they are doing, they would not have to dance around terms like ‘Free Software’.
But then again the ‘community’ from Sun’s perspective is still a new thing, the new ‘in’ thing, so perhaps this is only a sign of the immaturity of the burgeoning new community. I really hope that Sun follows through with what they have promissed- I do not want to see the dev’s who are now ultra-gung-ho about the new commitment from Sun getting left high and dry. Maybe one day all the kids will be allowed to play in each others sandboxes….
I believe OpenOffice is a mess that no-one wants to work on. I’ve fixed maybe 3 bugs in OpenOffice myself. Hell of a lot easier than Mozilla, but this was *after* the project to translate all the comments from german to english. That effort didn’t start for years after Sun released the code. They could have at least got someone to do that before they released it.
I’m not a developer just a user. Just wanted to say that I feel uncomfortable with CDDL. Just a feeling. Will be sticking with GPL and GPL compatible license for now.
But I will be looking at the development at SUN. If things get better, maybe I’ll give OpenSolaris a try.
When it exists, let us know.
I think Java should remain the way it is…for now. I think Java is complex but when you are trying to do the amount of stuff that Java tries to do at the same time, well it is rightfully so. I mean take a look at the netbeans 4.1 ide itself. I have been using it for a few days and while it is in beta it is blazingly fast on my machine. Gone are the days of Java being slow, or too hard to learn and all the other FUD people spread about it. In fact M$ in all their wisdom decided to copy the J2EE platform and just call it .NET hehe. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Moreover take a look at some of the performance enhancements and features Mustang aka Java 6 is going to have!!! Incredible…
Reading this?
This corporate culture is an order of magnitude less efficient than it could be. Yes, corporate development do ship. But what? Bugs + crap software?
Next time you envy this corporate culture, think twice. They are “pros”, but at a cust that can suck the life out of you.
I’m not referring to Sun and Java alone. After seeing some dotnet code and requests, they do have a big problem out there as well. I can’t believed. See this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/aconrad/archive/2005/02/16/374757.aspx
The problem is worse because it’s not just about performance. Performance is a good marketing feature, even if it’s not entirely true. The problem is the wasted time and efforts everywhere… Sadly.
I barely could breath while writing that.
To be fair, Solaris 10 is very snappy and well performant on single CPU systems. Even Solaris 10 x86, in fact. Feels much more fluent for desktop use than Solaris 8, on my Blade 150 (sparc). It’s fantastic on a P4 3.0 GHz I’ve been testing.
I’m not a developer just a user. Just wanted to say that I feel uncomfortable with CDDL. Just a feeling. Will be sticking with GPL and GPL compatible license for now.
If you’re not a developer then don’t worry. Why are you uncomfortable with the CDDL? You are aware that the CDDL is basically the same license as what Mozilla originally used called the MPL, right?
It’s a file-based license, meaning the license only applies to files that contain CDDL licensed code. You can link against it and do lots of other things to your heart’s content. It’s a very business friendly license.
Don’t spread FUD.
For what I undestand the Solaris source code license only benefits Solaris. It is not GNU GPL or similar. Not everybody is on liberty to grab the Solaris Source code, compile it and “SELL!” it just like Linux.
The code of Solaris can not be integrated with Linux, they use different license. Any try to bundle Linux with Solaris code on it will generate al lawsuit from Sun.
Sun is just trying a desperate try to increase his hardware sales by saying that Solaris is open source.
Why didn’t Sun open source Java if they understand that the market requires open standards ??
I personally don’t belive too much on the licensing used for Solaris (CDDL), since now Linux has too much force, I don’t belive that someone will like to go with a diferent license.
We will see on the next years what will happen with this.
I personally don’t belive too much on the licensing used for Solaris (CDDL), since now Linux has too much force, I don’t belive that someone will like to go with a diferent license.
We will see on the next years what will happen with this.
Stop telling everyone to “stop spreading FUD” when they are just pointing out facts or opinions.
There is no opensolaris. If so, give me a download link. Don’t point me at the page telling me its coming next quarter, give me the download link for the source. Until then, it is vapor and PR. The day it comes out I will be the first to say Sun has an open OS, until then all they have is open BS.
As for someone telling you they feel uncomfortable with the CDDL, how is this FUD?
Shawn – stop spreading FUD.
>> Why didn’t Sun open source Java if they understand that the market requires open standards
because like most corporations, they are only interested in open sourcing code that has been left for dead internally. yes they made one final push with solaris 10, but look at sun’s financials…this is their hail mary OS push.
Sun is under pressure to Not Open Source Java for a number of simple reasons.
One being users don’t want it turned into C#.
We don’t want Pointers, we want the level of simplicity we’ve got in Java.
We want to continue with the Java Community Process, which you can join, if you want to move the direction of Java.
We don’t need an “Open Source” implementation to fragment it into non-existence.
Let a thousand Linux distros bloom. Who knows maybe one day one will work. ‘cuase they sure ain’t comatible with one another.
Does anyone else think reload the OS is an upgrade strategy?
Open source predates Linux if anyone cares. Linux is open source, but open source is not linux.
I hear Intel is so into open source that one day they may even release the notebook chip specs to someone other than MS. Maybe that’s what she is going to try and do. Wish her well.
For yet another Linux/Solaris flamewar to start. Didn’t you guys read the article?
Now, repeat after me: Linux is good, Solaris is good. Once OpenSolaris is here, it will help make Linux better, and a better Linux will make OpenSolaris better.
Both OSes can coexist, and they have a common enemy in Redmond. Is that so hard for people to understand?
The Mozilla team doesn’t have the ability to revoke your right to use the code, nor do they have terms regarding patents nor even lines restricting your right to sue people you believe to have wronged you. The CDDL gives that power to Sun.
Though I am against the MPL, the GPL, the LGPL and most especially the CDDL, so perhaps I am a little over the top in my detest of the virals.
“Personally, I’m not a Solaris fanboy or user – too many problems, crappy hardware support, crappy selection of software, and all round lack of any firm, concrete direction for Solaris by SUN.”
Ehm.
– Solaris is not about running it on your little home x86 box.
+ Solaris is about running mainframe with 100 cpu’s 24/7 with hot-swappable components. Something that has 100% uptime. Something that you can trust your bank transasctions on.
Linux fanboys have really hard time understanding that, while their own favourite OS can’t do it? (psst. 2.6.11.5 & 6 again “multiple local root fixes”).
1) I am not a Linux fanboy either – if you took atleast 30 seconds to visit my blog, you can clearly see that I am part of the “Mac cult” or as some people like to call it “the Steve Jobs cult” – yes, I am probably affected by the so-called “reality distortion field” that Steve apparently uses (versus the space time continueum distortion device that Bill Gates uses).
2) Solaris is a hosting platform for the SUN Ray appliance – the SUN Ray appliance runs applications on the server and displays them on the client, therefore, my comment regarding the crap availability of applications still stands.
If there are no applications available then Solaris stands little chance of it becoming a platform for which applications can be hosted, not only on workstations but in thin client/dumb terminal setups as mentioned above.
3) Regarding bank transactions – most still rely on large mainframes that do large batch transactions – hence the delay between money being deposited/transferred and the actual database being fully updated.
When SUN guys talk about Linux they always lie. example of this is our friendly Jonathan who lied in multiple interviews and blogs that Red Hat Linux was proprietary and not LSB compliant
I think what Johnnathon was trying to say is that Red Hat doesn’t use the Vanilla kernel as released by Linus – with that being said, Johnnathons speech was pointless – nothing more than attempt by him to hear his own voice.
I’m not actually surprised when I hear reports stating that the majority of x86 sales, customers request Linux – I certainly don’t trust SUN – atleast when you go for something like a Dell, you know what you’re getting, or if you purchase something off Apple, you know what you’re getting – SUN on the other hand, instead of getting IHV’s and ISVs onboard, they’re wasing money on crap like “new sales models” – someone needs to wake the management up and say, “its the f*cking software and hardware, MORON!”.
Little wonder Java is the complex beast it is today. Everytime I use Java, I ask myself one question. Why did they have to make it so complex? One only needs to contrast truly open source languages like Perl, Python or Ruby and compare it to Java. Then, the difference between designing a language in a lab as opposed to the real world becomes evident.
I think what you’re getting at is Java is a language looking for a problem to solve, where as the likes of Perl and Python were designed to fix a problem on day one.
One only needs to look at the origins of Java – a language designed, then a sudden realisation, “oh, what are we going to use it for now?”
Like I said earlier. It’s just a feeling. What kind of feeling? Distrust.
If CDDL is exactly like MPL why would the need a new license?
“Not everybody is on liberty to grab the Solaris Source code, compile it and “SELL!” it just like Linux.”
Tell me why people won’t be able to sell OpenSolaris. Give me one reason why OpenSolaris isn’t Open Source, in every sense of these words, as approved by the OSI.
(Any answer saying that people won’t be able to sell Open Solaris is WRONG. You wouldn’t even have any royalties obligation to Sun! That is what Open Source means.)
“The Mozilla team doesn’t have the ability to revoke your right to use the code, nor do they have terms regarding patents nor even lines restricting your right to sue people you believe to have wronged you.”
Sun put MAD (mutually assured destruction) clauses in there to deter lawsuits in a very real way. There is no restriction on the right to sue OpenSolaris developers, but there is a very serious incentive to not do it.
Sun understands that there are patent terrorists out there who care only about destroying the world for money. OpenSolaris will be in a uniquely protected postion in OSS, as it will have those 1600 patents behind it and the CDDL to keep the lawyers at bay.
As people learn about the CDDL, I think it will be a matter of time before the subtleties that make it a good license will be better understood.
“…atleast when you go for something like a Dell, you know what you’re getting, or if you purchase something off Apple, you know what you’re getting – SUN on the other hand…”
Huh? Buying from Sun is as straight-forward as buying from Dell or Apple, if not more so. The Solaris 10 support pricing matrix is like a 3×3 table, and that’s it. You can buy Sun hardware direct, if you want to, or go the traditional sales rep route, if you want to. It is really about as clear-cut as it gets.
No, it is not free, it may be that some find it’s restrictions to be better for what they want from their code, but it is not free enough to be better in my mind; just as the GPL is not free enough.
“…it is not free enough to be better in my mind; just as the GPL is not free enough.”
So, instead of ‘all information wants to be free’, you prefer ‘all information wants to be public domain’? I’m all in favor of a strong public domain, but it is rather hard to make money there.
No, more I do not like being forced into something. If you want to give something to the people, give it to them, don’t just give it to them if they give it back with interest.
Freedom also means not being restricted in how something is used; if I make something and you want to make changes to it and sell the changed version you should be able to do so. Afterall, I gave it to the people to use, not for some fame game or political interest.
“No, more I do not like being forced into something…”
No one is being forced to do anything. Just like in any transaction, if you don’t like the terms of the contract, bail out. _That_ is your freedom. Ask any Libertarian (capital ‘L’) in the USA about what freedom is, and you’ll get the same answer. OSI was even headed by ESR, an unashamed Libertarian, and OSI didn’t seem to have much problem with the CDDL. I just don’t see how freedom is up for debate, here, unless you really mean “anarchy”, which is not freedom in any sane person’s mind.
I too am concerned about how “open” Sun really is under their CDDL.
Groklaw has an interesting article (dated Feb 5) about Sun addressing the patent issues by creating a “Bill of Rights” and what the pitfalls may yet be. There is some info on the diffs between CDDL and Mozilla License and why the Moz is GPL compatible and CDDL is not.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050205022937327&query=CD…
The initial concerns (from an even earlier article) when the CDDL first came out are in this article:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050121014650517&query=CD…
It looks like we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens…
{sigh}
E.
do you even read press releases? Do you even know the release dates for opensolaris?
Did you know it’s already been released to a select few before it goes mainstream?
I think your jelous that java isn’t open source. But apparently not not jelous that .NET isn’t open source.
“…atleast when you go for something like a Dell, you know what you’re getting, or if you purchase something off Apple, you know what you’re getting – SUN on the other hand…”
Huh? Buying from Sun is as straight-forward as buying from Dell or Apple, if not more so. The Solaris 10 support pricing matrix is like a 3×3 table, and that’s it. You can buy Sun hardware direct, if you want to, or go the traditional sales rep route, if you want to. It is really about as clear-cut as it gets.
1) Obviously you’ve never purchased anything off SUN Microsystems New Zealand – they make IBM look like a well tuned organisation. Sorry, unless I can ring up and order over the phone or preferrably via their website, I don’t want to have any relationship with them – its just that simple.
If they can’t trust their customers as to allow them to make a direct purchase via a website, I don’t won’t do business with them – its just that simple. As soon as you start talking about resellers, consultants and other crap over the telephone – you’ve instantly lost me as a customer.
2) Solaris 10 still doesn’t support all the hardware features on their x86 line ups; SATA support is basic at best, no RAID support, IIRC there is no lightsoff support either – sell hardware that you ACTUALLY support rather than promising support 6months down the track – look how long the Java Workstation has been out, and still no bloody 3d accelerated drivers and no AGP support! this is the type of incompetency which occurs at SUN, and yet, in the same breath, SUN want to be taken seriously as an x86 company?
“If they can’t trust their customers as to allow them to make a direct purchase via a website, I don’t won’t do business with them…”
In the USA, Sun sells direct via their Sun Store website, and via several EBay auctions (yes, you can name your price on new Sun hardware). I don’t know much about New Zealand, so YMMV.
“2) Solaris 10 still doesn’t support all the hardware features on their x86 line ups; SATA support is basic at best, no RAID support, IIRC there is no lightsoff support either…”
You really should learn more about Solaris 10 and Sun’s Opteron servers (fully independent lights-out HW). I’ve read somewhere that Apple’s XServe RAID is supported under Solaris. There is always software RAID under Solaris, if needed.
And if you are doing RAID on anything else but a home PC, why not just go for U320 SCSI.
Groklaw is an _extremely_ biased website. Their discussion forums read like a closed door Republican meeting about that Schaivo lady.
Other sources about the OpenSolaris and the CDDL show that Sun is aiming to work with ISVs, for example, where Solaris’ stable kernel interfaces are great for device driver support and porting applications. Customers will also be able to better support their systems having source code available during troubleshooting. As mentioned many times, the CDDL has a well thought out approach to dealing with the current software patent debacle. OpenSolaris will also be the exact same codebase that Fortune 100 companies run their whole businesses on.
Sun has also said several times now that they are most certainly not out to sue anyone. Anything said to the contrary is FUD, more FUD, with FUD icing, and a FUD cherry on top.
Groklaw is an _extremely_ biased website.
Perhaps, but their legal research is flawless. Unlike so many other websites, they usually don’t base their arguments on assumptions, press releases and second-hand information, but rather will analyze the available data through legal eyes. If they’re wary of the CDDL (and so far I haven’t seen outright condmenation, but rather cautious uneasiness), then it’s mostly because they fear some of the legal ramifications for the developer and user communities.
Their discussion forums read like a closed door Republican meeting about that Schaivo lady.
Now, come on, that’s totally uncalled for. For one, most posters on Groklaw lean on the liberal side. Second, that analogy is in very bad taste considering that Terry Schiavo is living her last hours as we speak.
Sun has also said several times now that they are most certainly not out to sue anyone. Anything said to the contrary is FUD, more FUD, with FUD icing, and a FUD cherry on top.
Well, since we’re talking about something none of us know anything about, i.e. what may happen in the future, I’d say it’s being overly confident to call out such hypotheses (i.e. Sun suing someone because of the CDDL) as FUD. While I don’t think it would be in their best interest, I can’t see how someone could be 100% convinced of it like you are.
It’s not FUD, it’s a serious risk based on the license. It may cause fear of negative actions by Sun, which may turn lead into uncertanty in using the CDDL and doubt as to whether people should not just look elsewhere for their solutions, but it is a valid concern that this is all based in.
You cannot simply blindly trust a company, companies are out to get you and your money, they don’t care about you and only want to take all they can away from you. That is the way of the world.
Your “AntiFUD” is not any better than someone’s blind hatred for the CDDL, it is you being blind.