Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle?

With Apple having followed through on its promise to dump the  ZFS file system, and Oracle still preparing to take over Sun any time now, we should consider the future of the technology, and perhaps the OpenSolaris operating system it rides on.

OpenSolaris was Sun's attempt to secure a future for what had been its proprietary Unix. It has some advantages over Linux, on which its advocates will gladly bend your ear over a couple of beers.

But there's a curious thing about technical advantages in the age of open source. They don't matter as much as they once did. After all, if open source can compete with proprietary products that have decades' head start and armies of programmers behind them, how big is an open source program's technical details?

Open source has taught some hard lessons.

It's pretty clear that the programming of a few little features don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy software world. Oracle has its Unbreakable Linux program in which it has invested heavily. Does it really make sense for Oracle to keep carrying OpenSolaris, or is it time for Larry Ellison to tell it, "Here's looking at you, kid" and just walk away?

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