Oracle and SUN Archive

Simon Phipps of Sun has responded to the recent criticism of Sun's openness, pointing out that even releasing information that they may already have costs a lot of money. "Jonathan asked me to look into this, to ensure we're pursuing an open path across all of Sun, not simply the software group. We take all input seriously, and we can't solve all problems for all parties, but we're committed to doing our best to faithfully engage with all the communities we serve, in the same spirit as the existing Open Source Ombudsman Scheme. With the support of my team and others in the community I'll try to build a new scheme that is fair and transparent."

Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos said his company's technical and marketing agreement with Microsoft will help increase Linux adoption rates because users will have access to improved technology and won't have to fear lawsuits from Redmond. "What's good for adoption rates is good for Linux," Typaldos said in an interview.

"We began our week of JavaOne coverage this morning with some of the information shared during the CommunityOne General Session. Now that the day is winding to an end, we have some additional information to pass along on Sun's first-ever CommunityOne event. Outside of the CommunityOne General Session, other tracks throughout the day were on NetBeans, GlassFish, OpenJDK for mobile & embedded environments, OpenSolaris, Web 2.0, Startup Camp, RedMonk's un-conference, and the discussion of Linux versus Solaris."

Xandros today launched Xandros Server Standard Edition 2, a complete, enterprise-grade SMB Linux server package including Xen virtualization and more than 30 other services. The new Xandros Linux server is compatible with existing Windows domain and networking topologies.

"Amid falling sales of its bread-and-butter servers and mounting pressure on Schwartz to cut more jobs and boost a stock price that's dropped more than 22%, to USD 5.26, since early February, Sun is considering its most radical open-source move yet: releasing Solaris under the love-it-or-hate-it GPL. The move could reinvigorate Sun by putting one of its crown jewels into the thick of the open-source movement - or it could diminish the worth of one of Sun's most valuable pieces of intellectual property."

Xandros today announced that Xandros Server 2.0 is the first product to be certified by the Linux Foundation through use of the LSB Distribution Testkit. Xandros engineers worked closely with their Linux Foundation counterparts in perfecting the new, automated testing procedures that will facilitate broad application developer support to Xandros Server 2.0 and all other standards-based Linux operating systems.

Sun Microsystems announced today that it is acquiring the assets of SavaJe Technologies and will reveal further details at its JavaOne conference next month. SavaJe's claim to fame is its Java-based embedded operating system, which was shown running in a mobile phone at JavaOne last May.

So, it's April 2007 and Sun Microsystems has just popped one of its 16-core Rock chips on CEO Jonathan Schwartz's desk. Schwartz posted pictures of the Rock silicon on his blog, bragging that 'the chips are running billions of instructions already'. Sun's customers must be encouraged by the Rock display, having suffered from about five years of delayed UltraSPARC chips. Servers based on the Rock family - Boulder and Pebble - should begin shipping in 2008.

Sun Microsystems has launched a new business unit to sell its Sparc processors, a return to an idea it had dropped years ago. David Yen, currently executive vice president of storage but previously in charge of Sun's Sparc work, will lead the new group and retain his executive VP status, the company said Thursday.

"With the release of Linux-based Xandros Server 2.0 Standard Edition, well-known Linux desktop vendor Xandros offers compatibility and other services that may give Microsoft SharePoint Server some competition. In the new server, due in April, Xandros will include Netherlands-based O3Spaces Workplace 2.0 office collaboration software. With Workplace 2.0, users will be able to use OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and/or Microsoft Office to work on documents in commonly hosted Xandros workplaces. At the same time, Xandros claims, the system enables everyone involved in the project to track the work being done on it."

"Microsoft Word users now can easily import and export to the OpenDocument Format. The StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology Preview, a plug-in for Microsoft Word 2003 that allows users of Microsoft Word 2003 to read, edit and save to the OpenDocument Format is now available."

"As Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, UK-based Simon Phipps' job could become ever more tiring, it seems. The biggest step the company has taken so far is definitely the announcement of the Java Development Kit (and Runtime Environment) becoming free software. We invited Simon to keynote at FOSDEM and, due to his busy schedule, interviewed him about Sun's position in the free software universe over the phone."

When it comes to open sourcing Solaris and Java, patents and politics are leading Sun toward a change of heart. The question is which open source licence should govern the building of projects out of the company's technology crown jewels. The open source Solaris project began with a Community Development and Distribution License, and open source Java employs version 2 of the General Public License. Now, though, Sun likes the idea of governing both projects with the upcoming GPL version 3, chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said in a speech and an interview at the company's analyst summit in San Francisco on Tuesday.

In their joint announcement, Intel agreed to support the Solaris OS, while Sun will use a number of different Xeon processors in its x86 line of servers and workstations. In a collaboration that one CEO called 'historic', Sun Microsystems and Intel jointly announced a new partnership that will see both companies support the other's technology. The announcement, which had first been reported in the Wall Street Journal and formally detailed at a joint news conference in San Francisco on Jan. 22, will allow Sun to develop x86 servers using Intel's Xeon processors.