A patent watchdog group is raising questions about the legal language behind Sun Microsystems’ recent open source offering called OpenSolaris. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) is criticizing Sun and its CEO Scott McNealy for potentially misleading developers into thinking Sun’s latest open source contribution is free of any legal land mines.
Sun Solaris Patent Release Questioned
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I’m sure they will clarify this.. and they obviously want a great deal of control over opensolaris.
after all, they don’t want their millions of dollars to go to waste (in corporate terms).
There’s an entertaining discussion about this at Slashdot–people from all sides going at it. OpenSolaris is definitely stirring the pot.
I do hope this is cleared up, because there are a number of pretty serious accusations going on. People’s imaginations are going wild with this patents issue.
With Linux out of the way, all that will be left is Solaris and Windows.
And BSD…
Quietly survivng many era’s with a great stable, unified and completly open/free OS. I am just continually amazed on how little press the BSD’s get but how well they work. DragonFly has replaced all my RH/Slack boxes.
“BSD, the Clark Kent’s of OS’s”
eE
“And BSD…
Quietly survivng many era’s with a great stable, unified and completly open/free OS.”
Right you are.
“I am just continually amazed on how little press the BSD’s get but how well they work. DragonFly has replaced all my RH/Slack boxes.”
I don’t know about you, but I like the press-elusive nature of the BSDs.
Many people will install a Linux distribution or a BSD version just because it’s the “cool thing” to do rather than for their respective qualities as Operating Systems.
I personally don’t want that crowd anywhere near the OS I love (FreeBSD), so I think we’re better off without a lot of press. The computer scene knowing about our existance is *just* the right amount of press.
“BSD, the Clark Kent’s of OS’s”
Clark Kent was the weaker side, BSD is Superman.
-mojo
Simple FUD. OpenSolaris will be a revolution and no amount of mudslinging will stop it.
My prediction, Red Hat will be crushed in a few years and along with it, all hopes of Linux becoming mainstream. Really, who would waste their time with Linux, when they can experince and help develop a REAL UNIX running on a number of different platforms.
I sure want to see this before i believe it. If you look at other similar projects, and how they revolutionized the world, the prospect isn’t really good.
Mozilla for instance, didn’t magically gain 1000’s of extra developers just because it was open sourced. And if you look at who is actually making openoffice happen today, i think you will find most people is being paid by sun.
It is all about the community, and i really don’t think that a large part of the linux community will jump ship and work and use opensolaris. It might be open source, but as far as i can tell not all of it will be open, and if it isn’t even GPL compatible, you are ruling out the biggest base of free software.
I personally can’t see why so many people are excited about this. Yes, it probably is a good thing that they open source it, though i personally don’t care. I generally find operating systems pretty boring, and there is no user software specific for solaris anyway. I would rather have them update their commandline tools so they don’t feel like they haven’t evolved since the 70’s, and i would like a more linux like /proc filesystem to fetch system info from.
“*BSD’s fate is still in question also.
When more of OpenSolaris is available (and buildable!) in a few months, its going to be quite incredible and there will be a huge exodus from the Linux/BSD camps. I don’t see what advantages that the *BSDs will offer.
Unlike Linux, OpenSolaris will succeed because of its superior technology and not meaningless hype.”
As the above poster already mentioned, BSD has withstood everything from disbandment of it’s original authors to an all-out lawsuit filed by a corporation many times the size of SCO, and not to mention the simple test of time.
Most deployments of BSDs are as simple x86 web-servers, mail servers and firewalls, and they’ve been running those services for literally years without needing a single reboot. When OpenSolaris comes, it’ll be aimed squarely at the large enterprise that either has all IBM machines running Linux and/or Windows or from some other vendor like Dell or HP, BSD have little penetration (compared to Linux and Windows) in that segment of the market so they needn’t feel threatened.
Linux has now become an industry by itself and major corporations have taken a great deal of interest in it, it is this interest that Sun wants to take back for *Solaris, restore it to the dotcom days’ level and then some.
Most BSD installations I’ve seen (not suggesting that it’s a trend throughout the industry) at different ISPs and companies are there because the administrator is a dedicated BSDer and no matter what s/he runs on the main servers, the admin will always keep a box or two around that run BSD which performs an important task on the network.
So the moral of this long speech is that OpenSolaris will not hurt the BSDs *nearly* as much (if at all) as they will Linux and it’s aspirations of becoming the leading server OS in the enterprise arena.
-mojo
“I recommend everyone focus their energies in bashing Microsoft. That’s where the real progress needs to be made. ”
Ummm, no. You want to get into FOSS for jihad reasons, be my guest. The remamder are in because they enjoy programming, and sharing gives a nice feeling.
If there’s progress to be made? That’s going to be in open standards. That’s something in which all can participate. BSD, GPL, MIT, etc, etc.
Am I the only one that has noticed that the anonymizer.com guy is posting flamebait designed to illicit knee-jerk reactions? I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy, but since it’s being funneled through anonymizer.com, it’s impossible to say for certain. However, they seem to be caricatures of OS zealots and I think they’re trying to make fools of the OSNews visitors. I would suggest that people just ignore their posts as the forum abuse, since the moderation system on OSNews is a bit inadequate and slow.
I am sooo tired of hearing about OpenSolaris. if it wasn’t for Linux there would be no OpenSolaris! It’s because of Linux that these companies making Billions of your dollars are even THINKING about giving some of it back!
You think that SUN who has not made a profit in 3 years is going to crush anyone? And do it by giving away their most profitable product?? Hummmmm. Interesting.
And yes RedHat may have some problems. But do you think Novell will have the same problems? Unlike Red Hat, Novell is licensing their software the same way Sun is trying to. Giving away their software to non business users and selling it to business users plus providing support and trying to move old Netware users to Linux.
Here is my question? What is the point of Open Solaris? You are not going to be allowed to make a Solaris clone with it (Which you can do with Suse and Red hat) So are these changes or development going to go back into the regular Solaris? I am not getting it. Please help.
First Apple (OpenDarwin), now Sun (OpenSolaris). Damn cooperate PR people (Uh, everyone’s talking about “open source” , lets jump on the hype train!). Just like Darwin, OpenSolaris won’t grow into an OSS community project. Maybe some lonely freak will make a GNU/Solaris distro with some ported apps (of course 90% of the distros website will be occupied with political rants about why Sun, MPAA, patents etc. are evil) but that’s it.
This is just a PR stunt because Sun’s PR departement decided that they want the “Open Source” lable, too.
If the next hype is “OSS a failure – Closed Source rulez!” Sun and Apple will immediately close their sources again. And honestly I wouldn’t care. The fact that Darwin is open-source had no noticeable positive effects. Did OSS volunteers make any noticeable contributions to Darwin? Has Darwin been turned into an interesting OSS alternative? No!
100% right, just like with OpenDarwin in order to make it useable you have to use what?????
Software designed for Linux in the first place. Like KDE and Gnome. The same with BSD. Yes it’s nice, might be better then Linux. But it never got popular outside of webservers until KDE and Gnome and other applications that got popular on Linux. Just like Sun and the Java desktop emviorment. Where did Sun run and sell it first (And still sell it more) on Linux.
Why because the Solaris kernel is not as easy as Linux to work on, work with and modify. Solaris is very complicated and even Sun knows it.
Yeah, the same guy (unless there’s someone else with an identical style) has been posting via anonymizer for some time now. It’s normally rabidly pro M$ stuff/anti-Linux that he comes out with. Really anonymizer should be blocked; nobody should need to try and hide their identity if they’re talking about OSs – unless they’re up to no good like this bloke.
Whatever.
Darwin is steadily growing and the porting projects have become very succesful. Darwin has become very successful and has come a long way even with Apple’s strong grip.
Because, it’s hard to get in the game when freebsd and linux rule already when your not promoting it like sun is doing.
It’s funny how this has stirred up some talk.
I don’t have a problem with it actually. It’s not hard to change my IP to something like –dl.dl.verizon.com
Because, you know, the majority of the open source community users will argue how we need more privacy and how they will trash anti-privacy efforts.
i think surfing anonymously is good but anonymizer is old school
it’s hard to block anyone on this site unless if they required logins anyway and then they could use a diff IP.
I’m sure someone will start logging into anonymizer and making additional posts on here and people will draw a connection and say how they all are the same people.
the suspense of wanting to know if he works for some important company in the OS work must be great though
Sun > Yuo.
I have been using Solaris since 2.6 was new.
Stop hate.
Start heartiez.
What at least 90% of folks care of is the apps, not the OS. And the apps are the same, whether you use Solaris, Linux or BSD. Quit bashing each other.
> My predictions are a bit different: Solaris will continue to be ignored by key ISVs. Sun will continue to be ignored by large enterprise customers fleeing the insane risk that is Sun’s product strategy
You’re dead wrong with this as the overwhelming majority of ISV already pledged there support Solaris 10 on x86 even before it is officially released. Let’s see, we’ve got pretty the overwhelming majority of tier 1 players signing up for it: Oracle, BEA, SAP, CA, Sybase, PeopleSoft and a bunch of others either already have commited to Solaris x86 or already have ports of their software ready to be shipped (IBM most likely will follow suit pretty soon). If anything the signs of adoption by ISV have been extremely good. I predict a very healthy growth of Solaris in the near future most likely at the expense of Windows, Linux and other Unix variants. Solaris is too good to be ignored by ISV’s and customers alike. Solaris is by far the best OS on the market right now, which also happens to be at the cheapest price on the market — how can you ignore that?
> What at least 90% of folks care of is the apps, not the OS. And the apps are the same, whether you use Solaris, Linux or BSD. Quit bashing each other.
Exactly, out of the Solaris/Linux/BSD trio Solaris has by far the best portfolio of apps and a stellar history of running mission critical apps without any dramas. Solaris is at the heart of a *lot* of companies and institutions running the most critical applications and has been extremely successful at that, I’m afraid neither Linux nor BSD can challenge Solaris on the applications front.
> Open Solaris will never beat Novell in this game, Novell has been at it too long!
Err, what is Novell’s game anyway, being a miserable underdog to M$ and instead of inventing something new trying to emulate every piece of crap M$ puts out there? Sorry, but Novell is not a leader, it is a follower and I would never expect it break the mold any time soon. I respect Novell’s attempt at adopting Linux, but Novell’s intentions of pushing Mono as “me too” platform for .Net will lead them to disaster — Linux developers are avoiding Mono and anything related to M$ as a black plague fearing for the second SCO scenario (and rightfully so). All Linux products that came out from Novell’s stuartship over SuSE are pretty half-baked and don’t have any product differenciation to win customers. Novell should try a lot harder to win customers from RedHat. I actually think SuSE would have been a better company without Novell.
Clark Kent was the weaker side, BSD is Superman.
Clark Kent was the weaker side, but underneath all that nerdiness and uncordnation lie a man of steel that could be called upon in a moments notice. Clark Kent was humble and unassuming but always could do whatever he was called upon to do, like save the world. Sort of like Beastie…
The ENTERPRISE arena will be an interesting cage match over the next 3-5 years. Reminds me of the old WWF days of throwing Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and Jesse the Body all into a cage. Except all players can be winners in this match up of MS, Linux, OpenSolaris.
Run Linux apps and be a copy cat!
No matter how many features Sun adds, no matter how much better Solaris is supposed to be! Sun is trying to make Solaris like Linux and an effort to beat Linux at it’s own game that not too long ago Sun said was stupid!
<snip>
I can’t wait to see what happens! Lets see if OS can catch up to Linux and beat Linux at what Linux created.
You have GOT to be kidding me? And what have 99% of all linux distro’s been TRYING to be and still continues to try?
They might as well have an opensource Outlook by now.. Oh wait they do.
Ok for one but now not another… LOL.
My predictions are a bit different: Solaris will continue to be ignored by key ISVs.
I guess that’s why Solaris still has the biggest chunk of the *nix market. Yeah, that’s 35%.
“I guess that’s why Solaris still has the biggest chunk of the *nix market. Yeah, that’s 35%”
heu no, it’s Apple, from a big number 😉 Sun is far behind lol.
> heu no, it’s Apple, from a big number 😉 Sun is far behind lol.
Apple’s presence in the enterprise server space is close nil, so yeah Sun is still an undisputed #1 player in the *nix market.
Lawyers and the legal equivalent have a way of burning people. Of course this being a two-way street, can you really expect Sun to reward you for the work they did. I think it’s relatively clear that their indemnification goes out of its way to protect contracts and obligations they have with third parties. Without which there would be challenges to every line of code you write. They’re giving you half a loaf, but you want it all. Greedy beggars! What’s there to say to a group which claims its opensource treatise is above reproach, yet takes the cake when it comes to realize that the likes of Big Blue and HP are really the “owners” of Linux.
–Solaris is too good to be ignored by ISV’s–
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,97250,…
Notice the quotes from key ISVs saying Sun is no longer relevant? They’re just repeating what everyone already knows – Sun’s a corpse.
–Solaris is by far the best OS on the market right now, which also happens to be at the cheapest price on the market — how can you ignore that?–
It is a *good* OS on x86 – in some ways Linux is better, in others Solaris. But everyone in the enterprise market knows depending on Sun in the x86 space is a huge risk because of the strong likelyhood that Solaris 10 x86 is just a repeat of their 2000-2002 scam to get folks to depend on Solaris, then pull the x86 plug and force them to migrate to expensive SPARC boxes.
If they would divest the hardware part of the company (sell to Hitachi?) then people might take Solaris seriously. Otherwise, I see a slow-speed death spiral with increasingly wild rants and strategy shifts from McNealey/Schwartz.
Now that SCO’s usefulness to Microsoft as an anti-Linux FUD weapon is almost over, it looks like they’ve bought Sun as the replacement.
Novell being the underdog to M$ And I guess Sun is not? Hummmmm? And wait when was the last time Sun made a profit??? Wait let ask, when was the last time Novell DIDN’T make a profit!
Even though Novell has been an underdog to M$ (Who isn’t) They have STILL being making money and still getting business. SUN has not!
To Evil: Come on I could say the same thing about M$. Word being a copy of Wordperfect and Excel being a clone of Lotus 123 and Quatro Pro. Outlook and Exchange being copies of Lotus Notes. Everyone wants to make the better mouse trap. But Sun and OpenDarwin are just reporing the same Linux apps, not making new ones. That is a big difference. Because 99% of the work is already done for them. Most of the apps they are porting like Open Office would not be popular if it wasn’t for Linux. Because there would be NO Open anything besides FreeBSD (Which was never that popular out side of the server space and nich markets till Linux took off and people wanted a piece of everything free)
If it wasn’t for people clamoring for a free or low cost office suite for Linux Openoffice would still be just StarOffice and only prob run on Windows. (Maybe Solaris even though it wasn’t till Linux that Sun really thought about going after some of the Desktop market. They never thought about Solaris X86 as a standard Desktop OS. Only on Sparc workstations)
You really could’ve picked a better example than OpenOffice considering that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Sun opening it up in the first place.
Like any new project (open source or not) it’s going to take some time and few bumps in the road before everything is ironed out. In just a few days the world will have their chance to get their hands on one of the most technically advanced UNIX (yeah I know, there is no 100% UNIX anymore, but Solaris and the BSD’s are the closest thing generally available). Solaris 10 x86 and especially 64 bit Solaris 10 on Opteron are going to rewrite the rules on the server and pro workstation fronts.
Also amazing to watch a certain group of another OS (I won’t name names, no need) that are always fussing about FUD from Redmond getting their own hackles raised and going defensive with their own FUD slinging. Sad when you think about, it many of the “suits” will be watching how their community reacts to a bit of competition on the horizon.
Competition will be good for both OS’es, don’t fear it, embrace it, choose the best platform for your needs and get on with life/business! Rather than nitpicking, get your hands on Solaris and give it an open minded evaluation.
Hardware compatibility? Personally I don’t really care, from what I see Solaris will run on all my mainstream server/workstation hardware. Frankly I’d rather Sun focus on high quality driver support for at least the bulk of mainstream hardware rather than (trying to be like Windows) and support every persian bizzarre piece of hardware. A great deal of this cheap/poor quality hardware out there has no business in a server room or in a professional workstation. My fear for a certain OS out there trying to replace windows on the desktop is that it’s becoming bloated and full of driver support for junk….just like windows.
Going to be an interesting ride over the next 12-24 months! Set back and get yourself plenty of good laugths watching the FUDsters and fanboys threatened by a bit of competition. One thing for sure, I’ll be entertaining to watch.
JT
There is a clear reason why the open source community didn’t jump in the Darwin bandwagon: Apple kept their GUI closed source. Without that, Darwin is just another BSD kernel (pretty good but not as technically cool as Linux). On the other hand, Solaris is giving away a completely modern kernel that has so many features that Linux kernel developers are just now being able to wet dream about. Interest is gonna be high.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050121014650517
PJ is pretty light on at Sun in this one, so its worth the read where it otherwise weren’t.
“Who do you work for? You consistently spread FUD about Sun.”
And you consistently try and pump their lame PR.
I don’t work for any of the “sides” in the discussion. I work for a company that got _severely_ screwed over by Sun in 2002 WHEN THEY *DID* *EXACTLY* WHAT YOU TRY AND CLAIM IS “retarded” FUD. You (anonymouser) and all the other (paid? yes, probably somehow) Sun shills/fanbois (.au, .anonymizer.com and a few others) try to ignore this point and call it FUD, but there’s no answer for what Sun did in 2000-2002 – and that’s why sun is a corpse.
“Sun’s not a corpse…they’re more like returned from the dead”
Where’s the snappy comeback to the ISV quotes (“desperate”, “a bit of a mess”, “Sun has sort of faded out”, “too late”) in the article I posted? Those are the guys you shills claim are so ethusiastic about Solaris.
“They’re even reporting profits, now”
LOL. One quarter, barely a profit, on *very* disappointing revenue. Try a 5 year SUNW stock quote to see what the non-shill community thinks of Sun’s long-term chances.
“Microsoft is an anomoly, of course, but they like to break the law more than most companies do.”
Agreed. But now Microsoft uses Sun like a sock puppet.
Again, AC, explain to me then why Solaris is still the biggest *nix in the world?
On the other hand, Solaris is giving away a completely modern kernel that has so many features that Linux kernel developers are just now being able to wet dream about.
Like?
“Again, AC, explain to me then why Solaris is still the biggest *nix in the world?”
He can’t. Also, it sounds like his company probably didn’t know what they wanted in 2002; that’s usually how the burning occurs. A vendor would push a paying customer only so hard before giving up (revenue is revenue), but, if the company doesn’t stand its ground, that’s their problem.
“explain to me then why Solaris is still the biggest *nix in the world?”
Reference?
Even if I accept your statement as fact, big SPARC iron was great back in the day which bought a lot of customer lockin and pumped Solaris numbers historically. In 2004, Solaris x86 (perhaps all Solaris) is in the noise compared to Linux and the BSDs on x86.
So… maybe I’m on crack here, but am I the only one who is seeing a lot of opensolaris fanboys come out of the woodwork lately, with fanatic like zeal for sun’s efforts? If the various posters seemed open to reason, rather then just flat out condeming linux, stating solaris is the “technically superiour OS”, and in general acting akin to the linux fanatics/zealots they redicule, I’d think otherwise…
So yeah. Anyone else getting the feeling of astroturfing? Granted, perhaps the recent level of noise/news from sun could be giving people a soapbox to stand on (so to speak), but the recent massive rise in it has me wondering…
And yes, I like my tinfoil hat. And you can construe this as “well, theres another linux fanboy who doesn’t like criticism/reality” although I do request one thing if you take the latter view- realize others likely are taking the same view of the recent ‘zeal’ for solaris that is rising up in these forums, and /., and seem to come off more as marketing the product rather then discussing.
Big financial people are saying sun is on poised for a comeback.
Also: Check Netcraft and other surveys (many research companies) will tell you that Solaris is the biggest unix.
However, obviously it excludes Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac.
Odd because those OS’s were built to the unix spec, only difference is they are open sourced any may not have derived directly from AT&T Unix (well freebsd obviously has it in it) I guess they just aren’t registered at the open group.,.. hmm
I think Darwin is much more technically good than Linux.
It’s built better than FreeBSD and Linux both. Please compare the major flaws of all 3 OS’s.
Darwin is not supported widely and Linux is. People use what works and is supported. Linux works and is very well supported.
“However, obviously it excludes Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac.
Odd because those OS’s were built to the unix spec, only difference is they are open sourced any may not have derived directly from AT&T Unix (well freebsd obviously has it in it) I guess they just aren’t registered at the open group.,.. hmm”
Maybe because they aren’t UNIX but just unix-like?
“So… maybe I’m on crack here, but am I the only one who is seeing a lot of opensolaris fanboys come out of the woodwork lately, with fanatic like zeal for sun’s efforts?”
I actually want to see something come out of OpenSolaris, and if that makes me a fanboy, I really don’t care. I’ve certainly been accused of that before.
And the “Solaris rocks! Linux sucks!” people are just trolls. Ignore them. They probably get moderated down, anyways.
“Maybe because they aren’t UNIX but just unix-like?”
The BSDs are just as much Unix as Solaris, even if they aren’t “official UNIX”. This notion that only proprietary Unix is the real Unix has to be quashed.
i am neither going to say anything bad or good about it and just wait & see what happens…
Sun is just a company wanting to make money like any other company, they have done good things in the past and they have said some stupid things too, and since were ALL human none of us are above saying something stupid or doing something stupid, yet we also say smart things and do good things too…
remember where OpenOffice comes from, lots of people love that office suite (i do)…
i will just wait and watch for what comes of this, neither being a luddite or a leader…
Solaris – a technically superior OS ? Yeah right on SPARC tin that is…
Solaris the biggest UNIX in the market – yeah probably due to the fact that they sold quite a number of boxes during the dot.com era, and probably is due to the fact that these boxes are still floating around in the market. Try giving some numbers based on current sales figures compared to other UNIX OSs.
Solaris is going to beat Linux and eat up its market share ? — Anybody remember the battle between MSWindows and OS/2 ? Eventhough OS/2 was far superior to MSWindows, it still lost out. Wanna bet that this is not going to happen in this situation.
The reason that Linux popularity is growing is because of its ‘universality’ in that it does not belong to any one company. The community drives the innovation and uses open standards to craft such an Operating System. Solaris no matter how much Sun touts as an Open Sourced OS by their definition is still very much under control by Sun themselves.
Vendors are going to support Linux no matter what and Solaris is trying to ride on the coattails of this wonderful OS.
Remember Sun bought Star Office and opened because of the Linux community asking for that. No Linux no OpenOffice! No Linux no OpenSolaris.
And yes Sun opened Star Office then sold it up the river to M$. That is why I used it as a perfect example. An example of Sun’s double dealing!
And people are saying that sun is ready for a comeback. How? By giving away their most popular product??
Please someone tell me how SUN is going to make money on Open Solaris. Are people going to develop OpenSolaris when they can’t make a compiled copy of what they are develop?? Plus they can’t put in things from Linux and vice versa! You think that people are going to put in TONS of time an effort on something they can’t even use??? Come on. So you develop on Open Solaris then you wait for Sun to roll up your changes into their full Solaris?? And pray tell me what happens to all your work if next week Sun again charges a fee for Solaris???
Hummmmm, unlike wth RedHat. I can recompile any version of Red Hat from Source (Like White Box Linux) And resell it or give it away! Will you be able to do that with Open Solaris?? Or did I miss read their License agreement?
Oh and will things like DTrace be open? Hummmm.
“Hummmmm, unlike wth RedHat. I can recompile any version of Red Hat from Source (Like White Box Linux) And resell it or give it away! Will you be able to do that with Open Solaris?? Or did I miss read their License agreement?”
Ah, now just how many people really honestly care either way about the doing that, very very few.
If you build an app, you just get them a free download of Solaris 10 and run the darn app on it. If they are required to have a license for the OS at their site, then you just add that cost into the equation, simple enough.
Customers just want something that works day in day out, they could care the least about GPL vs CDDL and all that non-sense. They want an NOS, not a religion.
Simple fact, most of the folks running around howling about license will not realistically be impacted much either way (if at all). Solaris 10 is free, if you want support then you pay a bit depending on the support you need and it’s cheaper than Red Hat or Novell’s Linux support.
If you truely want a free and completely open OS, then neither Solaris or Linux is for you, consider the BSD’s.
FWIW – White Box is basically dead, CentOS is a nice OS.
“Remember Sun bought Star Office and opened because of the Linux community asking for that. No Linux no OpenOffice! No Linux no OpenSolaris.
”
trust me. it didnt happen that way. staroffice was sun’s way of getting back into the office market. linux simply didnt matter for them
Remember Sun bought Star Office and opened because of the Linux community asking for that. No Linux no OpenOffice! No Linux no OpenSolaris.
Sorry, you’re wrong. Plainly and simply wrong.
Sun was investing in StarDivision for years before Sun
bought the company. Sun continued the open-sourcing
process that StarDivision had started because it was the
right thing to do.
And yes Sun opened Star Office then sold it up the river to M$. That is why I used it as a perfect example. An example of Sun’s double dealing!
What are you smoking? How does opensourcing of OpenOffice
amount to selling out to MS?
And people are saying that sun is ready for a comeback.
How? By giving away their most popular product??
Please someone tell me how SUN is going to make money on Open Solaris. Are people going to develop OpenSolaris when they can’t make a compiled copy of what they are develop?? Plus they can’t put in things from Linux and vice versa! You think that people are going to put in TONS of time an effort on something they can’t even use??? Come on. So you develop on Open Solaris then you wait for Sun to roll up your changes into their full Solaris?? And pray tell me what happens to all your work if next week Sun again charges a fee for Solaris???
Perhaps you are unable to read the actual license, or even
the FAQ about the license, both of which are available at
http://opensolaris.org/license/index.html and http://opensolaris.org/faq/index.html.
I really, truly think that you have no idea what you are
talking about. Please, leave the discussion to those who
can think.
Hummmmm, unlike wth RedHat. I can recompile any version of Red Hat from Source (Like White Box Linux) And resell it or give it away! Will you be able to do that with Open Solaris?? Or did I miss read their License agreement?
Actually, you haven’t read it at all, otherwise you would
not be making such ignorant comments.
Oh and will things like DTrace be open? Hummmm.
If you bothered to go to http://opensolaris.org/ you would
see that the first chunk of released source code in the
OpenSolaris project is in fact DTrace.
Here’s an excerpt from the front page:
————————————–
Downloads
Soon, you’ll be able to download the OpenSolaris distribution. For now — just to prove that we’re serious — we’ve made available the source code to DTrace; it’s available here under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) Version 1.0.
DTrace Source
If you have any questions about the DTrace source, head over to the DTrace forum
——————————
Now if you’re keen, you could try implementing DTrace
on linux. After all, the source is now there for all
to see….
Now if you’re keen, you could try implementing DTrace
on linux. After all, the source is now there for all
to see….
Looking at the DTrace source code is a stunningly retarded idea if you want to implement similar functionality in Linux. Not only is the CDDL not compatible with the GPL (which is fine), but the patent grant only covers CDDL works. Reading the CDDL source leaves the way open to all kinds of license infringement, patent infringement and general contamination issues.
First what I meant by recompiling was the fact I can if I want reuse the OS. Unlike in Sun’s CDDL license! Just like the Library system where I live. Which recompiled RedHat enterprise edition to use on all their PC’s and servers. Also if only a small amount of people did that then there would not be several hundred different versions of Linux on Distrowatch right now.
And to James what I meant by Sun selling out to MS is the fact that there is a clause in the agreement that was made with M$ in the Limited Patent Convenant and Stand-Still Agreement that was filed by Sun with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The document included previously undisclosed text from the legal agreements that codify Microsoft and Sun’s recently forged partnership — text that results in significant legal protection for customers of StarOffice, but that explicitly denies that same protection to users of OpenOffice.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/709519/000119312504155723/de…
Maybe again I can’t read, looks like a sell out to me though!
Thank you Blighty. You see where I am coming from. Sounds all good till you read the fine print.
Anyway since I don’t know what I am talking about. Can some one please (My 3rd time asking) Tell me if you can recompile and create a useable OS? And if not what is the point? What do I get out of helping SUN. I mean with Open Office you can recompile it and make changes (If you want to make a OSX native version for example)
“Can some one please (My 3rd time asking) Tell me if you can recompile and create a useable OS?”
yes, seems so:
http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=42
http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/images/opensolaris-is-real.jpg
http://schily.blogspot.com/2005/01/opensolaris-up-and-running.html
Sounds interesting? Now if only Sun put out the source for this to happen I would be right with you on that. But from the OpenSolaris site there is no source.
these ppl are pilot-program members, to whom the source is already available atm. sun still has to sort out legal stuff until which they can’t rls the whole source to everyone yet.
dtrace is a sign of good will and there are also obviously no legal hurdles with it.
i recommend you to read the sun/solaris blogs if you are really interested:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/
http://www.planetsolaris.org/
http://www.technorati.com/tag/OpenSolaris
http://www.technorati.com/tag/Solaris
So where can I use dTrace? I know you can’t include the source with Linux because of the GPL. Can I use it with BSD? Open Darwin or somewhere else outside of Solaris (Open Solaris)
since dtrace is a kernel feature, you can’t just use it with other os’es. you’ll have to port it.
as for the license, you *really* should read the faq on opensolaris.org maybe also the license itself. nobody here can take off reading and understanding from you.
just an example:
Q; Can code licensed under the CDDL be combined with code licensed under other open source licenses?
A: CDDL is file-based; that means that files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary. However, other licenses may have different restrictions which may prevent such combination; be sure to read and recognize those.
Solaris is a kick-butt big iron server OS, no doubt about it. I even has capabilites for big-iron server roles that extend beyond what Linux is capable of.
But how much hardware does it run on? Either sparc, or a small amount of x86 boxes (mostly Sun hardware). Right now, you can only get Sun boxes (running AMDs) to run Solaris (at least for workstations). And there is limited support on various servers. And where are the Solaris drivers for the multitude of video cards, sound cards, network cards, modems, scanners, printers, monitors etc etc etc? It’s virtually non-existent. By contrast, Linux now has a huge amount of hardware support, including thousands of device types mentioned above, right out of the box.
So, in essence, even though Solaris is now open source, has competitive pricing, and has tremendous capabilities, using it virutally guarantees Sun hardware lock-in, as well as lock-in with Sun support and services. That is Sun’s business plan with Solaris. Why else would they be open-sourcing their flagship product and making it dirt cheap?
Schwartz @ his blog:
ps. You’ve got to love IBM’s ability to play the community. Going through some of the patents they “donated” to the open source community a few weeks back, it looks as if they all, curiously, seem to be due for payment – and thus potential expiration – this year. Were they destined for the bit bucket (turns out IBM is among the largest patent expirers in the world, along with its largest issuer).
And some of the patents have nothing to do with open source software – my favorite in the heap is this one. Not sure that’s going to be quite the comfort the community’s looking for. Here are a few others – for those working in gel embodiments; and for the open source doctors in the crowd.
We know we need to help the community understand how to take advantage of our grant – but at least all 1600 of the patents we’ve granted to the world were for operating systems and software (USPTO 700, for the wonks in the crowd).
But how much hardware does it run on? Either sparc, or a small amount of x86 boxes (mostly Sun hardware). Right now, you can only get Sun boxes (running AMDs) to run Solaris (at least for workstations). And there is limited support on various servers. And where are the Solaris drivers for the multitude of video cards, sound cards, network cards, modems, scanners, printers, monitors etc etc etc? It’s virtually non-existent. By contrast, Linux now has a huge amount of hardware support, including thousands of device types mentioned above, right out of the box.
Bzzt, sorry, wrong. Totally wrong.
I run Solaris 10 at home and I’m posting this from a box
I constructed — amd64 based, popular motherboard (gigabyte),
the built-in sound works fine, ATI radeon graphics works
fine, usb scroll mouse works just fine.
The laptop I just bought (amd64-based again) is an OEM
job from mitac — it just works. No stuffing around
required to get Solaris to run on it.
Please check http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl
Note that hardware which was reported to work for Solaris 9
should also work just fine for Solaris 10.
There’s more than just Sun-branded hardware on that list.
Has anybody mentioned to you that you can also buy sparc
hardware from Fujitsu, Tatung and Tadpole? These, again,
work just fine with Solaris.
Drivers for printers are available using foomatic ppds,
just like in linux and *BSD if you install the right package.
Drivers for modems — have you ever seriously expected to
use a winmodem under anything except windows? Nope, didn’t
think so. Why should Solaris be any different on that
front? If you need a modem, get on that uses your serial
port and stick to standards that work.
Drivers for network cards — check the list, there are a
lot there, and there are a lot of non-Sun provided drivers
too (Murayama-san and Garret D’Amore for starters).
Drivers for sound cards, again, check the list and say
thankyou to Juergen Keil amongst others.
If you’re using a usb scanner or digital camera perhaps
you’ve heard of libusb? Comes as a standard part of
Solaris 10 (and at sun.com/downloads for 8 and 9).
Video cards and monitors — Solaris 10 uses Xorg. What
more do you want?
There is a whole wealth of information available to you
to check for the hardware you are running right now. Why
don’t you do so?
And yes, Sun does make money on the hardware — if you
buy it from Sun. If you don’t buy it from Sun, then Sun
isn’t any worse off either. Sun also makes money from
service and support contracts, just like IBM does only
without the army (Sun does not have nearly as many staff
as IBM).
Anybody running KDE on Solaris 10 in here?
I stand corrected (partially). My info was based on a recent article I read. That said, Solaris does not come close to the level of across-the-board hardware support Linux has established.
Also, I have made a Connextant winmodem work with Mepis Linux. It was a snap.
You might want to have a read of http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5557658.html?part=rss&tag=feed&s…
Some very interesting stuff is foreshadowed and if/when it does come to fruition, I guess that the Sun bashers will have to find something else to bash us over.