Sun Microsystems has sent some of its operating system staff packing as it finishes up a long period of layoffs. Sources have informed The Register that a larger number of staffers in Sun’s operating platforms group have been shown the door.
Sun burns Solaris and Linux staffers
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I sure hope that SUN doesn’t believe that (somewhat) open-sourcing Solaris makes their own people redundant.
As I always said, opensource finishes with programmers and people became unemployed (without a job) in tech industry.
Almost people that do opensource code are students or people that do it as a hobby. What thoose people don’t know, is when time comes to search a job in tech area especially software, they will find that it wouldn’t be easy because software company’s can’t sell software because there is a opensource software that do the same (have the same result) as the software that was been sold by the company. Most of the programmers love to do programming, but this is the price to pay when it came the time to search a job.
egr… that’s strange! By making Solaris OpenSource project, Sun invited developers from all around the world to participate in their project but I’m not realy shure if it’s enough to make this project survive the battle with Linux/BSD…
The next strange thing is that when Sun announced that Solaris goes open source, many people (e.g. my University) switched to Linux… that is illogical for me
but may not be as common as I think (these are only my private observations).
If m|crosoft products were opensource, how the employers would be paid? With support? Support is about 5%-10% of the benefits of a software company today. Why should users need support if they can go to a private school learn how to work with a software, and it’s not necessary to be a geek to install a software.
Your statement is only correct for a very small amount of programmers –the very small teams that create general bits of software. The bulk of the programmers in the industry work for companies developing in house bespoke software solutions or for consultancies whose services are creating individually tailored systems and as such, if anything, open source can create more jobs as the companies will be able to spend more money hiring somebody to work on an already existing open source solution to customise it to their needs.
I would stop quoting the Bill Gates propaganda manual at least until you can think about these issues by yourself.
You’re thinking is wrong! Take a look at Red Hat or Mandrake (that’s French, isn’t it?), they do well job and their products are Free Software! They make free software and then they sell it.
You don’t understand that most of free software is currently beeing developed by big companies (such as Novell, IBM) and they do it because it’s good for them.
On the other hand, developers that participate in open source projects have more chances to get good job (they have experience, they are creative, they love to write programs).
Sun was already going down. The switch to opensource isn’t the main culprit of these layoffs (they’ve fired linux staff too, don’t forget that).
Now, consider that if solaris gets more market share thanks to the opensource licensing (I personally doubt it, anyway), sun would get more benefits, going up again, then it’d need faster progress to compete so instead of relying on hobbyists for development it’d hire more paid staff, etc.
It’s not “opensource makes layoffs possible”, it’s “when a company doesn’t get enough benefits, it fires people”.
Of course, opensource reactionaries will still find direct relationships when they want or need to. But consider how Novell and IBM have been hiring linux staff for some time. The difference? Their finances aren’t as troublesome as Sun’s.
I think Lennart Fridén got a point there. Any company that develops FOSS (Free / OpenSource Software) still needs in-house developers & programmers. Public contribution can’t possibly develop a software 100% (within a reasonable time frame).
If the reason for SUN laying off their staff is that, there could be problems. I’m no expert at software license but SUN’s Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) don’t sit too well with some FOSS developers and programmers. SUN then could have problems in attracting contributions from these people.
Compound with the effect of laying off their own staff, it could be a stormy ride ahead for Solaris. Anyway, these are just my opinion
Don’t put too much weight on it. What does a mass communication graduate from a third-world country know anyway 
Mandrake had finantial problems some time ago. Can company’s profit from code done by others as a hobby or as a students? Isn’t it work for free? I think opensource is a communist movement in tech industry.
Oh, please. So not only individuals, but capitalist companies can get benefits from free software, so it’s clearly communist. And then the “work for free” reference, as if there was some exploitation there.
If it’s a hobby, or a student project, and they willingly chose a license that allows companies to take benefit from it, are the companies evil for doing something they are legally and morally allowed to do?
If it benefits enterprises that give employment to other people, or individuals, I don’t care if it’s communism, capitalism, socialism or whatever.
“And that’s exactly what most (serious) enterprises think about GPL! ”
trolls are getting worse every day
bsd is completely anarchic and is somehow more capitalistic to a all serious enteprises than gpl
and doesnt ibm, novell, sun, redhat, hp etc count as serious enterprises
stop smoking crack
It shows how confused and utterly stupid Sun is as a company. What really tells you if you have a future as an organisation or not is how you treat your staff, and more importantly, how you treat them when they have to leave, especially in difficult times as Sun are having.
These are people who have worked hard not only on Sun’s Linux work, but also on the Java Desktops System and Solaris 10 and Sun is treating them like something they found on the bottom of their shoe.
There’s nothing wrong with the people who work at Sun, or do good work with Open Office or with Tomcat and around Apache or in other parts of the company. The problem is the management culture at Sun, and it has to go the journey if they are to survive.
I think this is normal.
Solaris 10 promises many new features, so Sun needs lots of programmers for this effort.
May be Sun has hired more programmers in an ‘extra’ amount, more than normal – to accelerates the project .. may be in a contract basis. And after the project is done, contracts ends, those programmers will leave Sun.
When company hires people, we never heard any news.
(well, except there’s a celebrity
)
bsd is completely anarchic and is somehow more capitalistic to a all serious enteprises than gpl
Well, anarchism goes against the stablished system, so something anarchic would be pretty bad for current software companies. It’s not the case with BSD though, and I think you used the term “anarchism” wrongly.
and doesnt ibm, novell, sun, redhat, hp etc count as serious enterprises
The “problem” with BSD is that if one of those enterprises releases code with a BSD license, other competing company can build on their work and not give back the improvements.
It’s true that companies use BSD code for themselves (think MS and the commandline ftp client in Windows – that’s why I don’t consider BSD to be anarchist), but it’s pretty unusual for a serious enterprise to release code as BSD. It’s just too risky.
As I always said, opensource finishes with programmers and people became unemployed (without a job) in tech industry.
No, you just don’t have clue I’m afraid. Whether something is open source or not, Sun still needs their JDS and any open source software they use supported for them. They still need people. The problem is that Sun are in trouble and are so top-heavy that they need to get rid of people in the worst possible way they can. It will come back to haunt them.
Supporting software, fixing it and making modifications for your customers (whether you are an open source company or not) is not easy and needs to be done. Go and talk to all the open source companies out there doing it.
I sure hope that SUN doesn’t believe that (somewhat) open-sourcing Solaris makes their own people redundant.
Good point. Knowing Sun’s management, they probably do.
Quoting richard Stalman:
“Here’s what Bill Gates told Microsoft employees in 1991:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today…A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.”
Mr. Gates’ secret is out now–he too was a “communist;” he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful–until Microsoft became one of these giants. Now Microsoft aims to use software patents to impose whatever price it chooses on you and me. And if we object, Mr. Gates will call us “communists.”
If you’re not afraid of name-calling, visit ffii.org (the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure), and join the fight against software patents in Europe. We persuaded the European Parliament once–even right-wing MEPs are “communists,” it seems–and with your help we will do it again.”
And that’s exactly what most (serious) enterprises think about GPL!
Yeah, those buffoons at IBM, HP, Oracle…what a bunch of clowns.
Seriously (because you CANNOT be serious) the GPL is a perfect license for low layers of the stack because it prevents someone from getting a stranglehold on the market (like Microsoft). If someone gets far ahead (RedHat) and starts taking advantage then someone else (Novell/SuSE) will be _able_ to compete and keep them honest.
BSD licenses aren’t good here because the greater freedoms it offers (compared to GPL) does nothing to prevent monopolistic behavior like Microsoft’s.
Bob Young, co-founder of Red Hat, once said he was trying to shrink the size of the operating system market. That is certainly happening at Sun.
Although Solaris 10 may be a very advanced operating system, I don’t see Sun improving their financial position by making it free to use. Sun may bring back some Red Hat customers who don’t want to pay for RHEL, but how exactly will this make them profitable?
You people don’t get it do you? Sun had a huge redundancy of employees left over from the dot-com boom. I don’t really get why this is posted on OSNews, since it’s barely really news. This was all planned afaik.
I don’t know why the BSD license comes up every time people talk about the GPL and it’s commercial enterprise viability.
The BSD license was intended to serve the academic and research communities, no one intended it to become the dominant license of the software industry, unlike the role envisioned for the GPL by RMS.
BSD will continue to be a platform mainly for tinkerers and researchers, and as we all well know, they also make fine internet servers of almost any sort. 🙂
I thought this site is about OS news, not all news that make Sun look bad. I see all sorts of garbage posted on this site as news items, but anything related to Sun (mostly bad) most definitely makes it to this site. Why does Eugenia post all this Sun related staff almost daily?
Plus, so what that Sun let go of 40 odd developers? It’s drop in a bucket anyways. May be Sun is culling the fat cats that ask for exorbitant salaries, but are not productive, there could be a zillion of reasons to do that sort of thing, who cares. I bet there is a pretty good reason to do that sort of thing. What really matters is that Sun is not decommitting from its own products like IBM and HP do with AIX and HP-UX respectively. You shouldn’t care how many developers Sun employs to get the job done as long as the job get done. If it streamlines the company and saves a few bucks here and there without any loss to the product, I say go for it.
> Although Solaris 10 may be a very advanced operating system, I don’t see Sun improving their financial position by making it free to use. Sun may bring back some Red Hat customers who don’t want to pay for RHEL, but how exactly will this make them profitable?
Sun can give away Solaris for free and make a good profit off of it indirectly. Sun as opposed to RedHat is not a one trick pony doing just OS. Sun is a full blown systems company, selling everything from hardware, to OS, to storage, to middleware, to desktop and services. Sun sells systems not stupid CD’s like RedHat. If Sun can attach anything from its bundle of products (servers, storage, middleware, services, etc.) to Solaris given for free, it is making profit.
I don’t really get why this is posted on OSNews, since it’s barely really news. This was all planned afaik.
If I worked at Sun and I knew it was all planned I wouldn’t have worked, or done much work at all, on things like JDS and Solaris.
You’re missing the point that this is the worst possible way to get rid of your staff.
>Almost people that do opensource code are students or people that do it as a hobby.
Bzzzzzzzt… Wrong.. thanks for playing.
According to the last large-scale survey of open source programmers here are some interesting demographics:
Education:
36.7% have a graduate degree (masters-phd)
36.3% have an undegraduate degree
19.4% have a high school education
6.2% have a professional level (MBA, PE, etc).
Employment:
67.8% are employed
15.9% are self-employed
28.8% are students
3.6% are unemployed
Industry:
65.3% employed by business firm working on software/IT
12.5% employed by business firms in hardware
about 50% have earned money through their work on opensource.
Other:
71.1% of the currently employed and 59.2% of all developers said that their emoployers or schools are “well aware of their work on OpenSource”.
27.4% work on opensource as “part of their employement”
Time:
31.6% began developing opensource in 1997 or earlier
Median Age for delopers is 27, 50% are between 23 and 33 years old.
Here is the data for my points: http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/
Where is the data for your conclusion/statements?
”
Sun can give away Solaris for free and make a good profit off of it indirectly. Sun as opposed to RedHat is not a one trick pony doing just OS.”
i am afraid you are just being ignorant. redhat has a very big systems stack. learn about redhat apps besides operating systems.
These layoffs have been happening since long before sun even contemplated open sourcing solaris. What’s sad is that most of the layoffs have been in R&D, making it more difficult for sun to stay afloat. I thought they’d learned a lesson from their past mistakes, but I guess not. This is classic sun boneheadedness, and has nothing to do with OSS in any way, shape or form.
>>bsd is completely anarchic and is somehow more capitalistic to a all serious enteprises than gpl
Archaic http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=archaic
or
Anachronism
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=anachronism
I’m not quite sure.
Ok, so I understand that some of you guys think that Free Software movement is communism… wrong! I come frome post-soviet country (Poland) and I know what this word realy means. Communism has nothing to do with Free Software! Free software is an alternative way of producing software, and – yes, the comercial one to! Free software means plurality and this doesn’t happen in communism where we aren’t given a choice – we get what they give us (thinking about Microsoft now?… that’s right). Or if you read “Big Brother” by George Orwell you also know what I mean…
About these license wars… it’s stupid, licenses are what they are and for some people it’s better to choose BSD, for the others GPL is better. Discussing this topic again and again is a lose of time.
And Solaris… from what I heard of this is realy good UNIX. There’s no benefit from “linux winning against solaris”. The whole community (I mean – the market and the technology) can take advantages from existance of many operating systems only when it means that they compete and share ideas.
My opinion on the Sun issue:
Over the past couple of years, if there is one single thing that I can identify with Sun is that it can’t seem to make up it’s collective mind about Solaris/Linux.
Are they supporting Solaris? Are they supporting Linux/JDS? Will there be a version of Solaris 10 for x86 or not?
The perception of Sun is they can’t seem to get their answer straight – it’s all been a definite maybe. And that makes the folks who purchase (or may purchase) their products uneasy.
Flip-flopping is going to get you nowhere with the public.
What is a ‘staffer’? Is this some kind of executive (‘staff’) from a certain group?
“What is a ‘staffer’? Is this some kind of executive (‘staff’) from a certain group?”
no regular stuff from research and development amoung other sub divisions
software company’s can’t sell software because there is a opensource software that do the same (have the same result)
*slaps knee* try that in aerospace, broadcast, military, or other specialized areas.
Exactly. People really should read up on their politics.
The advancement of Linux has it’s origins in freedom to chose in one’s own self interest. If there’s anything that’s making Linux move forward it’s people chosing to use it. No matter how many laws are passed or how many thing Microsoft is forced to remove from their OS, in the end what counts is that more and more people and companies are using Linux for more and more things. The IT companies that act in their own self interest and adapt to their (potential) client’s desires are the ones that will make more money and be successful. Market forces in action, capitalism working!
Don’t forget that SUN currently employs more than 32,000 people whichs costs them quite a bundle. A company that is having a rough time financially cannot afford such a large headcount. I’m pretty sure a lot of the staff dismissed saw this move coming.
<<What really matters is that Sun is not decommitting from its own products like IBM and HP do with AIX and HP-UX respectively.>>
I read an intresting interview yesterday that touched on this.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-chiphopper/?ca=dgr…
—
dW:I see. And the other special interest community targets Solaris — we seem, lately, to not be getting along with Sun® very well. Does that boil down to the fact that Solaris and AIX are sort of the last of the old, traditional UNIX flavors that are still standing?
Handy:Well, there has always been competition in the UNIX space, certainly with Sun. Sun has lost six points of share in the UNIX market with Solaris in the last three years, and AIX has gained 8 points of share. So there is certainly a rivalry and a recognition that our UNIX strategy, by combining AIX and Linux, is one that customers are endorsing versus the one that Sun has.
Sun has, in an attempt to try to stop the flow of business going to Linux, started to fight Linux. And we are obviously very pro-Linux. Now, Sun will say, “Oh, we’re fighting Red Hat — not Linux.” It’s very tough for the rest of the industry to distinguish what they mean by that.
But they’re promoting now that if you really want what Linux offers, which is UNIX reliability at Intel price points, we’ll offer you Solaris 10 on x86. Now, that is just too little, too late, and Sun has 1% share of the x86 market. And so, again, ISVs will look at Chiphopper and say, Chiphopper is taking Linux x86 and making it bigger: it’s got this 40% kicker by moving my same app to additional platforms. Whereas, Solaris x86 is much, much smaller: one-twentieth the size of Linux. [This] will, I think, position Solaris x86 in a myopic, smaller world that will be significantly less attractive for an ISV as a porting target.
dW:And then, with AIX and Linux — one is UNIX, and one is UNIX-like. I know that we fully support both of them, but does it ever cause any problems, for one company to be doing two such similar systems?
Handy: Well, “ever” is a strong word. But in general, the go-to-market strategies are different. AIX has been targeting the UNIX-loyal install base — as well as the Solaris install base and what we would call the UNIX marketplace. Our own install base is growing.
UNIX has been treated at IBM as a net-new opportunity, and has its own group and its own division and its go-to-market. This year, 1.3 million Linux servers will go in, and we target where the customers are buying those Linux servers, and make sure that we have solutions — hardware, software, and services — around them to go in. So by aligning ourselves with where the customers are buying, we avoid that type of overlap for the most part.
If you look at where those Linux servers are going, about a third of it is coming from UNIX. And from the numbers I just gave you, you can see that significantly more is coming from Solaris — and then HP-UX — and only a little bit from AIX. And the rest of it is coming from Windows.
All sun wanted to do is Open Source Solaris to save on R&D.
> They make free software and then they sell it.
Please explain how this works. I am intrigued…
with that kind of loss of talent, we’re moving one step back in the fight against the USB malloc() bug.
When will we learn?
Go Sun!
Chuck-
Scott McNeely isn’t hurting too bad.
>> “Just because something failed in the past doesn’t mean the ideas behind those movements were flawed or evil, just their leaders. People become corrupt when they are given power. The GPL takes away all that power, so they have no chance to become corrupt. In fact they have to fight with themselves to be benevolent, to maintain control and power.” <<
What most people don’t realize is that A + B may not lead to C in the game of logic. What I see here is a company reaction to current market forces. They did not need the extra programmers – pure and simple. They looked at the bottom line and said – we don’t need this. See ya!
This is American capitalism in action. It may or may not have to do with open-source software. Probably not with proprietary owning well over 90 percent of the market.
As far as politics is concerned, I was taught that it is not Power which corrupts most directly but rather the “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, that one is loosing that power which causes people to act or react corruptly.
>>Scott McNeely isn’t hurting too bad.
People definitely underestimate the stress involved in being a CEO…
“*slaps knee* try that in aerospace, broadcast, military, or other specialized areas.”
The Marines among others are using Linux. Actually there was a big deal made out if with the head of the L.A. LUG quitting because he was claiming that the Marines were using Linux to kill Iraqis or some such nonsense. Anyway, the point is if the Military can use Linux, anyone can.
It looks like many of them were Java Desktop System developers. I don’t know how many of you have actually tried to use the JDS on Solaris but if you read the credits and see the huge number of people who claim to have worked on it, you’d be shocked. After using it for only a few minutes you might wonder what these people were actually doing. It’s apparent they weren’t working on JDS..
Is it not the idea that tech is supose to help people on this globe? Research and information is for every one.
Some say linux is not that good anyway.. then make it.
Software and computers is tools to be used. Some gpl soft is not bugfree, then if some company want it to be, they make it (look at Novell).
If u can get cheap and good software, why not? If programmers think they are poor, don’t develop for free. If a soft-corp can’t make money they are doing something wrong. U can’t beat a dead horse.
Novell and sun knows this. Some times the choise is not higher quality but lower prices. I think OSS developers is going to find new jobs when the demand for higher quality GPL-soft rises. Don’t forget OSS soft, only has a diffrent licens it’s still software and need developers.
Project manager counts.
Testers counts.
Legal advisors counts.
Translators counts.
Document writers counts.
Proof readers counts.
…
just like a movie-ending credits, every bits matters.
I’m sure these people will get jobs other places,,,,Apple or MS
I serverd in the Marine Corps 88-94. Uh-Rah!
I believe the philosophy is maximizing available resources to get the job done.
Why purchase an operating system that drains resources away from other mission critical items? If you can do the same amount of work with Linux that you could with Redmond – why pay or drain away funds?
“It’s apparent they weren’t working on JDS..”
JDS is quite good, IMO. There is an attention to detail that is often lacking in other Linux desktops, JDS is light years ahead of CDE, it is integrated into Solaris 10, and it is officially supported. Best of all, it puts UNIX usability right up there with Windows, which is historic. No one can really claim that Solaris is harder to install and use than any other OS, now.
…Are they supporting Solaris? Are they supporting Linux/JDS? Will there be a version of Solaris 10 for x86 or not?
Perhaps you haven’t had a look at sun.com lately.
There is most definitely Solaris for x86 and x64/amd64. The
only version of Solaris that wasn’t available for x86 was
the initial release of Solaris 9.
JDS is not “just a linux distribution.” Sure, the first
version of JDS was built on top of SuSE, but since the
middle of 2004 at least it has been the default, consistent
interface to Solaris and Linux. If you’d participated in
the Solaris Express program (which is ongoing, btw) then
you would have seen this for yourself already.
I have JDS running on my amd64 laptop right now (running
the next version of Solaris in 64bit mode). I have JDS
running on my ultra60 at home next to my aging duron-650
running JDS…. It’s just an interface folks.
Sun sells Linux. Sun sells Solaris. Sun supports Linux. Sun
supports Solaris. If it’s on a Sun pricelist (and yes, even
zero-dollar-cost Solaris is on the pricelist) then you can
get support for it, one way or another.
> i am afraid you are just being ignorant. redhat has a very big systems stack. learn about redhat apps besides operating systems.
What RedHat system stack are you refering to? A pathetic bunch of open-source apps not even developed by RedHat?. RedHat does not have anything to offer to be taken seriously besides the OS. You can’t call RedHat a systems company by any stretch of imagination — RedHat is still a one trick pony and calling RedHat a competitor to Sun is just laughable.
> and calling RedHat a competitor to Sun is just laughable.
Sun don’t think so.
Regarding the BSD license, I don’t see a problem with that scenario. If a company borrows some code, why should they be forced to open their whole programme? if they tweak the code to work in a certain way, for a specialised device, why should be be put over a barrel? why not allow the organisation or person to choose?
The organisation might decide that giving a donation or donating programmer time to the project, outside *their* area, as a way of “paying the community back” for the organisations use of the opensource code.
Yes, some people *will* abuse it, but the vast majority who do use BSD licensed code, actually do give things back to the community they borrowed from.
Regarding the BSD license, I don’t see a problem with that scenario. If a company borrows some code, why should they be forced to open their whole programme? if they tweak the code to work in a certain way, for a specialised device, why should be be put over a barrel? why not allow the organisation or person to choose?
The organisation might decide that giving a donation or donating programmer time to the project, outside *their* area, as a way of “paying the community back” for the organisations use of the opensource code.
Yes, some people *will* abuse it, but the vast majority who do use BSD licensed code, actually do give things back to the community they borrowed from.
i am afraid you are just being ignorant. redhat has a very big systems stack. learn about redhat apps besides operating systems.
Sorry, a grab-bag of opensource applications plus some road kill left over from Netscape does not equate to an end-to-end software stack.
Red Hat doesn’t own a damn piece of their software stack – sorry, I forgot, they own a few pieces of software that will be “given to the community” in the next couple of years. Once they’re opensource, we’ll have even more road kill on the net. Sorry, just surf through sourceforge and freshmeat, at the number of pieces of software that have started up, but died in the ass because no one could be bothered maintaining it. Same will happen to Red Hats road kill, they’ll end up continuing to develop, and maybe in a fit of optimism, a few times a year, a user might submit a patch to fix an annoying problem.
Father Baker (IP: —.lcwireless.net) – Posted on 2005-02-18 14:12:09
These layoffs have been happening since long before sun even contemplated open sourcing solaris. What’s sad is that most of the layoffs have been in R&D, making it more difficult for sun to stay afloat. I thought they’d learned a lesson from their past mistakes, but I guess not. This is classic sun boneheadedness, and has nothing to do with OSS in any way, shape or form.
Well, considering that the R&D is now spread between Fujitsu and SUN, you point is moot. The fact remains, SUNs R&D is still pretty high when compared to the rest of the industry.
Regarding their *future* products; there are tones of hints around their blogging site; Jbus to PCIe driver support is one hint that there will be PCIe going to arrive on the SPARC platform. Scott has also talked about the UltraSPARC III+/IV+, which are a major overhaul that will provide a major boost to performance.
Randy (IP: —.189.216.234.ts46v-04.otna2.ftwrth.tx.charter.com) – Posted on 2005-02-18 14:52:44
Over the past couple of years, if there is one single thing that I can identify with Sun is that it can’t seem to make up it’s collective mind about Solaris/Linux.
I wouldn’t say they have a problem making up their mind, its more of an issue of first introducing a ‘SUN Linux’ the improving Solaris big time along with Linux compatibility, so where does Linux fit into SUN’s grand scheme?
Personally, I see that along with Solaris being open sourced, Linux will be replaced with OpenSolaris/JDS as SUN’s premier platform. With the improved hardware support coming, like AGP driver and Nvidia driver in the next release, along with official support by Matrox for their P650 PCIe/AGP video card on Solaris. Now, the big question is, why is ATI sitting on their ass not supporting Solaris.
If it weren’t for RedHat, you’d still be paying $20K for Sun workstations instead of downloading Solaris 10 for x86 for free. Wake up and smell the coffee, Scott McNealy wears a PENGUIN SUIT onstage to show his LOVE! The biggest laugher is JDS is not a JAVA Desktop System, it’s LINUX! So swallow some pride and give us open source hippies a big smooch for everything we’ve done for you. 🙂
”
Sorry, a grab-bag of opensource applications plus some road kill left over from Netscape does not equate to an end-to-end software stack.
Red Hat doesn’t own a damn piece of their software stack – sorry, I forgot, they own a few pieces of software that will be “given to the community” in the next couple of years. Once they’re opensource, we’ll have even more road kill on the net. ”
a large amount of software in Linux kernel, glibc,gtk, cairo etc etc are copyright redhat.
http://sources.redhat.com/
is that enough?
hello guys. what about solaris. it contains gnome,xorg and huge amount of stuff from sf.net and rest of the places. do you think SUN owns all of solaris. you guys are crazy then
btw the netscape directory services cost 25+ million dollars and Redhat is totally open sourcing it. they did the same with Redhat GFS originally a sistina product. ok?
well… you can _sell_ free software! And that isn’t against GPL/BSD/whatever. You just have to make your code public (in case of GPL). That’s what Red Hat does (they sell their Red Hat Linux and believe me, it isn’t cheap at all!) but you can also download the sources, Novell does the same and Mandrake too.
Regarding the BSD license, I don’t see a problem with that scenario. If a company borrows some code, why should they be forced to open their whole programme? if they tweak the code to work in a certain way, for a specialised device, why should be be put over a barrel? why not allow the organisation or person to choose?
Perhaps you don’t see a problem with that, but the intrinsic methods of enterprises’ competitive wars will make them abuse licensing whenever they can. It’s in the market, not like enterprises are evil: they do what they must, but that doesn’t benefit the consumers when it comes to choice.
Of course, the reason they still choose free software (GPL) is because the software is good enough for them to get a head start, and they know if any other enterprise uses it, they’ll have access to their changes.
Yes, some people *will* abuse it, but the vast majority who do use BSD licensed code, actually do give things back to the community they borrowed from.
How do you know the vast majority gives back? Perhaps there are much more people closing BSD code for their own use and not publicizing it than the ones you know use BSD code and give back. After all, they can legally close BSD code and not tell a thing, as long as original credits are there somewhere.
Windows’ command line FTP client is known to be BSD code because the credits are somewhere in the .exe, for example. But then they criticize free software whenever they can not telling they actually have been using it for their own benefit for a while. That’s reason enough for me to prefer GPL. Makes hipocresy harder when you’re forced to show the whole source code to your clients
”
Yes, some people *will* abuse it, but the vast majority who do use BSD licensed code, actually do give things back to the community they borrowed from.
”
wrong. very very wrong.
hello guys. what about solaris. it contains gnome,xorg and huge amount of stuff from sf.net and rest of the places. do you think SUN owns all of solaris. you guys are crazy then
Apart from assorted stuff located in /usr/sfw and a few other locations, yes, SUN does own their code.
btw the netscape directory services cost 25+ million dollars and Redhat is totally open sourcing it. they did the same with Redhat GFS originally a sistina product. ok?
WOW! a whole $25million. Honey, thats chump change, something a CEO would find hinding in the back of a sofa when cleaning out the flat.
Dekkard (IP: —.red-217-217-21.user.auna.net) – Posted on 2005-02-19 11:45:07
How do you know the vast majority gives back? Perhaps there are much more people closing BSD code for their own use and not publicizing it than the ones you know use BSD code and give back. After all, they can legally close BSD code and not tell a thing, as long as original credits are there somewhere.
Windows’ command line FTP client is known to be BSD code because the credits are somewhere in the .exe, for example. But then they criticize free software whenever they can not telling they actually have been using it for their own benefit for a while. That’s reason enough for me to prefer GPL. Makes hipocresy harder when you’re forced to show the whole source code to your clients
Interesting you completely ignore the contributions made by SUN, BSDi, CISCO, Apple and many other companies have given back. Just because Microsoft has roughted the system, doesn’t mean that everyone else does the same thing.
Oh, and as for “disclosing without telling”, who is to say people aren’t obfusicating linux code, and not telling anyone? I could quite easily copy large chunks of code from GPL applications, obfusicating the source code, then running the binary through another obfusicator.
There are lots of ifs and other hypothetical scenarios, the fact remains, you can license something in what ever form you want, the underlying fact is, if someone is dead keen on stealing code, they’ll steal it, and they’ll put a decent effort into making sure they don’t get caught.
Interesting you completely ignore the contributions made by SUN, BSDi, CISCO, Apple and many other companies have given back. Just because Microsoft has roughted the system, doesn’t mean that everyone else does the same thing.
Hey, prove that “everyone else” doesn’t do the same thing. You can’t, cause you’d first need a legal basis to make them show the code.
I put MS as an example, a pretty visible one. If you want more, you can take Zeus, an Apache derivative (Apache uses a bsd-style licensing).
Or you could remember how Sun and Apple have been working for decades in a closed-source basis, and only now they realize free software (and/or MS) is eating their market.
And they haven’t chosen the BSD license neither. Hmmm…
Oh, and as for “disclosing without telling”, who is to say people aren’t obfusicating linux code, and not telling anyone? I could quite easily copy large chunks of code from GPL applications, obfusicating the source code, then running the binary through another obfusicator.
The difference is that it would be illegal. And there are ways to prove the crime in a trial.
Oh, and if companies prefer to obfuscate code in order to hide stealing, I pity the maintainers.
There are lots of ifs and other hypothetical scenarios, the fact remains, you can license something in what ever form you want, the underlying fact is, if someone is dead keen on stealing code, they’ll steal it, and they’ll put a decent effort into making sure they don’t get caught.
So what you’re saying is “let’s forget copyright and let’s go public domain. It won’t work anyway”.
Well, then BSD is worthless too. Who needs credits, blah.
“Apart from assorted stuff located in /usr/sfw and a few other locations, yes, SUN does own their code. ”
ya sure. keep dreaming. meanwhile major parts like xorg, the fork of gnome and a misnomer called “java” desktop systems are all open source projects.
in open source projects people SHARE code. if SUN is a true open source company it would boast about integrating all the pieces of code that it DOES NOT own rather than whining about people not contributing towards its own base. its called better system integration, efficiency and avoiding the NIH syndrome.
Oh, and as for “disclosing without telling”, who is to say people aren’t obfusicating linux code, and not telling anyone? I could quite easily copy large chunks of code from GPL applications, obfusicating the source code, then running the binary through another obfusicator.
Are you dead stupid or just under the influence of something? All it takes is ONE disgruntled ex-employee and you are in deep shit that could potentially wreck total mayhem and havoc on your business.. Anyone running a business that would even ponder taking that risk, for such a petty thing belongs in a asylum rather than in a responsible position in a company..
Yes, but in the *REAL* world, people need *PROOF*. If that individual has no *PROOF* their former employer could easily sue for slander and ruining their good name.
Sorry, stop trying to make out that someone can jump out of the company and become a whistle blower without any consequences. You’re very naive as to believe that it would haven’t any impact on their future employment.
Do you *really* think they could get a job after that fiasco? no company in their right mind would want to hire them after blowing a whistle.
Sorry, when you have a large organisations, how are you going to keep track of 5 cuts of code there, with five cuts of code from somewhere else; not *LARGE* copying of code, just the odd line here and there as required.
As for Dekkard; illegal? has that ever stopped a company from doing wrong? you need to learn the first rule of business, “thy shall not get caught”.
Yes, but in the *REAL* world, people need *PROOF*. If that individual has no *PROOF* their former employer could easily sue for slander and ruining their good name.
Yeah. And do you know what? As soon as you do *anything* there *will* be traces.
Sorry, stop trying to make out that someone can jump out of the company and become a whistle blower without any consequences.
Why not? 1. You don’t *have* tell who you are to get people interested and start digging. 2. Who is really trying to make something out? A commercial company would potentientially risk *everything* because petty theft of “a few lines of code”? Sheesh, you *are* fucking stupid.
Do you *really* think they could get a job after that fiasco? no company in their right mind would want to hire them after blowing a whistle.
You are still making the theoretical assumption that the wistleblower has been found, which for example “Deep throat” never was. However, all companies aren’t crooks, and I can’t see why a *honest* company would fear someone like that. If they do, it says more about them than about the whistle-blower, and perhaps they too need to be scrutinized..
Sorry, when you have a large organisations, how are you going to keep track of 5 cuts of code there, with five cuts of code from somewhere else; not *LARGE* copying of code, just the odd line here and there as required.
Well, if it’s only a few lines here and there, why not make them yourself instead of wasting time looking around for gpl-code to nick?
As for Dekkard; illegal? has that ever stopped a company from doing wrong? you need to learn the first rule of business, “thy shall not get caught”.
Maybe, but you are completely disregarding the risk-factor. IE “does the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks”. I’d say anyone who deliberately puts their company’s future and even potentially risks doing time (copyright infringement is maximum 2 years in prison here) “for a few lines of code here and there” is totally nuts, and belongs in an asylum. (No I don’t think that’s what would happen, but it is “worst case” – thus a possibility, if a remote one.)
You speak of “do not get caught”. Well, if you are going that way you always have to think of:
1. Whether what you are doing is worth the risks or you’ll end up taking unneeded chances which in the end will be your undoing. And if you make this behaviour a norm, the risk of detection will grow dramatically. It’s a secret, and as time goes on the more people will know about it. Then rule #1 for secrets kicks in. “The probability that a secret is no longer a secret = (the number of people who knows it)².
2. Anything and everything you do leave traces because it was done. The questions are, will someone find them, and what if?
So. I’m not saying, and I never was, that you *couldn’t* nick gpl-code if you think it makes you feel proud and successful. I’m saying that it is a thing no responsible company would do in their right mind, because the consequences *could* be *disasterous*. And generally speaking, healthy businesses don’t like that, and will do anything avoid it, even *gasp* do things the legal way.
Why not? 1. You don’t *have* tell who you are to get people interested and start digging. 2. Who is really trying to make something out? A commercial company would potentientially risk *everything* because petty theft of “a few lines of code”?
All this has happend before so yes companies do these sort of things.
You are still making the theoretical assumption that the wistleblower has been found, which for example “Deep throat” never was. However, all companies aren’t crooks, and I can’t see why a *honest* company would fear someone like that. If they do, it says more about them than about the whistle-blower, and perhaps they too need to be scrutinized..
Most companies( even honest ones) bind employees with NDAs prior to thier employment. When you leave I am sure you have to sign something that says you don’t possess and will not disclose company secrets.
Going against the NDA is not wise for anyone. It will most certainly harm the indivudual more than the company. Have you actually worked for a large coorporation?
If company’s like Microsoft can evade punishment even after being found guility, do you think most companies with a few billion can’t drag a court case out for years on end. Or at the least the company will settle with the individual without much detriment to thier reputation. But the individual would never be employed again, hopefully he/she made a nice sum in the settlement. But that is a huge risk for any person to take.
All this has happend before so yes companies do these sort of things.
Sure. And I’m just waiting for someone get royally zinged from it. It will happen.
Most companies (even honest ones) bind employees with NDAs prior to thier employment. When you leave I am sure you have to sign something that says you don’t possess and will not disclose company secrets.
I don’t know how things are in your part of the world, but using a NDA to shut employees up about illegal activites is doomed to fail in my part of it. In fact if you tried you might get slammed really hard for it. (Think “obstruction of justice”, I don’t know the proper legal term.)
Going against the NDA is not wise for anyone. It will most certainly harm the indivudual more than the company. Have you actually worked for a large coorporation?
That depends. As I said before the premises vary wildly depending on where on this planet you are. Here there are certain things you cannot take away from people by a contract (they are simply not negotiable, and any contract that tries to remove these things are automatically unenforceable in that regard), and furthermore, if a contract is too one-sided or unreasonable, the law (here) says such a contract is void in either applicable part or in it’s entriety. Finally regarding this, if they still wanted to get you they first have to find out who leaked, and that isn’t always that easy, or even legal. Remember that spying on your employer and leaking secret information is one thing, and exposing your employer as a criminal is something entirely different. Please don’t mix these things up.
If company’s like Microsoft can evade punishment even after being found guility, do you think most companies with a few billion can’t drag a court case out for years on end.
Sigh. What can I say. “Only in america” is the closest thing I guess. You have to do some serious work on your system over there.
Of course, when big money has all the influence and pretty much can write the laws as they want them the little guy is going to lose. However, that’s not the case everywhere. For example at least one german company have been taken to court for this, and they lost big time.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5198117.html
Several others have settled out of court when they understood what they where up against, like this one.
http://lwn.net/Articles/71418/
Generally in europe stuff like this doesn’t take years either, which is why sco was told pretty quickly to shut up or put up, and have been quiet on this side of the pond ever since.
Ps.
Regarding your example with microsoft. The fact is that if you have been a particulary naughty boy the CEO goes to jail. >semi-joke< You don’t think you could get say IBM to sponsor you for a chance to make Ballmer do time? >/semi-joke< 😉
Ds.
To sumarize your post. Things work differently in different countries. You were particularly harsh and out of line in your post to Kaiwai. Using profanity, and personal insults. You should have been moderated.
I was pointing out the obvious, things work differently in different legal systems. Thanks for sharing your perspective and how things work in your part of the world but please don’t assume your perspective is universal and use profane language when someone offers a different perspective.
To sumarize your post. Things work differently in different countries. You were particularly harsh and out of line in your post to Kaiwai. Using profanity, and personal insults. You should have been moderated.
Thank you for sharing your views on the world. Apparently you americans need now and then to be reminded that you are not the world. For that matter bullshit is always bullshit no matter how you put it. Point in case: “Whistle-blowers are *always* cooked, and stay cooked for ever”. As I have pointed out none of this is necessarily true. They are only cooked if there is *no* honest employer around and *if* they are found out. To try to pass anything else off as the absolute truth is nothing but a lie, aware or not.
Kaiwai made a lot of categorical and unsubstantiated claims and I still consider my objections vaild regarding that you could get into real trouble if you try to run you company by trying to treat stuff like the laws doesn’t apply to you, especially if you do it on a day to day basis. That way you will get caught, and then there is nothing that stops your competitors and/or the gov. to gang up on you..
Besides if that’s how you run your business it doesn’t even take a wistel-blower. All that is needed is someone having a slip of the tounge, or a misdirected mail or a competitor having a really close look at your product.. there are probably thousands of ways such a thing could leak out.
Basically Kaiwai’s arguments regarding how you could run a business without getting exposed or taken to court for it boiled down to “I’m an evil corp., I do as I pretty please”, which doesn’t hold water. You are pointing out that this happens all the time. That is true, but in general these companies mend their ways when they are approached about their wrongs. This would indicate that they were mistaken about somethings, like the validity of gpl or the meaning of it. I have only found *one* case where it went to court, the one I linked to above. You could also think about why Microsoft are so careful about only using *BSD code when they use free code.. I guess they aren’t so sure they could get away with the “evil corp.” tactic.
I was pointing out the obvious, things work differently in different legal systems. Thanks for sharing your perspective and how things work in your part of the world but please don’t assume your perspective is universal and use profane language when someone offers a different perspective.
LOL. I guess you are right I shouldn’t have let this Fox News fan get the better of me. As for the rest, thank you for repeating the syntesis of my post back to me, I hope you realize it goes both ways…
Wow. It seems some people are in denial that sun has contributed more to open source than any other company. I’d like to see you dispute that and provide evidence against it.
Sun open source solaris hoping the community would build it instead of their own developers. It will probably work. It worked for Red Hat and Red Hat ships more OS’s than Sun does.
Cut costs any way possible.
Thank you for sharing your views on the world. Apparently you americans need now and then to be reminded that you are not the world.
Assumptions, Assumptions…… I am not American. Like I said please refrain from bringing politics into discussions on OSNews.
Your post was about, if a disgruntled employee leaves he can ruin your company. I merely pointed out that things don’t necessarily work that way.
How would a governement body or competitor secure a search warrant without proof? on the word of someone who just got fired or resigned? What a joke.
I ddin’t claim that a company stealing code is legal or in the right. I stated that just becuase something is illegal doesn’t prevent a company from doing it.
LOL. I guess you are right I shouldn’t have let this Fox News fan get the better of me. As for the rest, thank you for repeating the syntesis of my post back to me, I hope you realize it goes both ways…
Sorry, I am still better than you, far far better and more cultured . I never made fun of you based on an assumption of your nationality or what news channel you watch. Nor have I used profanity. How does it go both ways?
I’m not from America either. The bottom line is, however, in New Zealand, the fact of the matter is, copyright law is a matter of the civil justice system. Not only must the copyright holder provide evidence, they also must proove that they’ve be detrimentally affected by the actions of that particular person or organisation.
Regarding SUNs contrabution to opensource; the opensource community has done jack all contribution to OpenOffice.org. If it weren’t for the work SUN has been doing, there would be no OpenOffice.org
Need people be reminded of the fact that it was SUN who bought StarOffice for $50million, and it was SUN who did the heavy lifting in regards to spliting up the application suite into the individual components, and create the XML format that you and many other users take for granted.
In in actual fact, the Linux community, who are the greatest benafactor of SUNs generosity, should be bending over and liking their boots. If it weren’t for OpenOffice.org, Linux would be stuck with an operating system with a couple of half-baked solutions with many broken features (Gnumeric and Abiword come to mind).
ps. I’m actually a BBC fan, and loath people who are sitting on the right (like Christian Fundamentalists).
Assumptions, Assumptions…… I am not American. Like I said please refrain from bringing politics into discussions on OSNews.
Ok, my mistake, built on *your* view that how things work in your part of the world is how things always are. Other people I have spoken to don’t tend to be that arrogant. And that, dear friend, is not politics but genuine experience.
Your post was about, if a disgruntled employee leaves he can ruin your company. I merely pointed out that things don’t necessarily work that way.
No it wasn’t. I gave that as an example.
How would a governement body or competitor secure a search warrant without proof? on the word of someone who just got fired or resigned? What a joke.
Now you gotta be the one joking.. If we are going to go with the ex-employee example, of course he has absolutley no way of giving you evidence that proves that he tells the truth? And there is absolutley no way making checks without a search warrant? Sigh. I think your temper has blinded you.
I ddin’t claim that a company stealing code is legal or in the right. I stated that just becuase something is illegal doesn’t prevent a company from doing it.
Where did I say you did that? And yes, you are right it doesn’t prevent them. But as I have said before, there are many different reasons, and you still haven’t refuted what I said about that.
Sorry, I am still better than you, far far better and more cultured.
More arrogance that serves what purpose? Am I supposed to be impressed by these smug words? tsk,tsk.
I never made fun of you based on an assumption of your nationality or what news channel you watch.
“Look at me how good I am!” Dude, first of all you got that totally wrong. I haven’t really made fun of you yet, even if your arrogance makes you a tempting target for ridicule. Secondly I wasn’t refering to you as a propaganda watcher.
Nor have I used profanity. How does it go both ways?
Here, Mister “I haven’t used profanity”, have a medal. And in case you really didn’t understand what I was refering to instead of just pretending, here it is:
I was pointing out the obvious, things work differently in different legal systems. Thanks for sharing your perspective and how things work in your part of the world but please don’t assume your perspective is universal.
Sweet dreams, thank you for playing.