Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Open source Solaris comes out today (sort of)

By David Berlind | January 25, 2005, 12:01am PST

Summary: If all goes as planned,�Tuesday will be the dawn of a new age for Sun’s version of Unix, known as Solaris. In what could prove to be the penultimate move before the operating system begins its challenge in ernest against Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Sun is expected to release an open source version of [...]

If all goes as planned,�Tuesday will be the dawn of a new age for Sun’s version of Unix, known as Solaris. In what could prove to be the penultimate move before the operating system begins its challenge in ernest against Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Sun is expected to release an open source version of the operating system under the name OpenSolaris. Whereas Solaris 10 was announced last November, the open source version of the operating system, which is being announced tomorrow, will be released in stages. For example, with Tuesday’s announcement comes the release of Solaris’ DTrace utility. DTrace, which stands for Dynamic Tracing, is a performance analysis and debugging tool that picks apart software as it runs, finding and tracking what processes are being requested by what programs.

In addition, the source code behind OpenSolaris isn’t completely in the free and clear — at least not yet. Not only will those wanting to see the full source code have to wait until the second quarter of 2005, the license — known as the Community Development and Distribution License — disallows the intermingling of Solaris and Linux software. But it does permit code-swapping with other open source projects under several other open source licenses.

Sun’s open-sourcing of Solaris is just one of the company’s many maverick moves since the company’s recently installed president and COO Jonathan Schwartz was basically handed the keys to the entire company while CEO Scott McNealy has stepped back from his role as chief Sun antagonist (and protagonist).

But, just when McNealy’s shift to more of a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker led many to believe that the vitriolic hyperbole associated with his one-liners would subside, Schwartz cranked things up a notch, using every public appearance and his blog to accuse competitors HP, IBM and Red Hat of everything from misleading customers to hypocrisy. Most recently, Schwartz issued an open letter to IBM CEO Sam Palmisano admonishing Big Blue for its refusal to bow to the needs of customers who want IBM’s software to run on Solaris 10. Said Schwartz in his letter,"the only vendors that fear choice are those trying to block it. We stand at the ready to help you tear down this wall."

If you could ask Sun’s execs anything you wanted about the way it’s open sourcing Solaris, tell me (using TalkBack) what those questions would be.

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All "open source" is not created equal ...

mwagner@... 25th Jan 2005

Sun has gone out of their way to write their own open-source license for OpenSolaris -- this was no accident. This approach is a simple way to encourage third-party innovation without any chance of the waters being muddied by the GPL under which Linux is distributed.

Ironically, this is not very much different than what AT&T did in the early days of UNIX. Open source was available to universities everywhere -- but the license was strictly controlled.

In effect, Sun retains complete control over the Solaris product line and, since they already have indisputable rights to SVR4, IP infringement litigation is simply not an issue.

No one should be surprised that both McNealy and Gates have stepped back into the shadows. They both realize that their common enemy is Linux and their collaboration is geared to that aim. They needed to stop sniping at eaqch other and focus on stopping the Linux GPL movement. It was also no accident that Microsoft bankrolled SCO -- purchasing a perpetual SVR4 license and asking their investment partners to invest in SCO. This SVR4 license also frees Microsoft and Sun to freely share UNIX source code.

Don't be fooled. Bill Gates and Scott McNealy and shrewd businessmen and they have Red Hat as well as the other Linux vendors squarely in their sights.

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Open Source

bkenny 25th Jan 2005

Finally, an era of open source denial from dominating computing companies comes to an end. Is this wish to become reality in the future, is Sun's distro to become the first stepping stone for future companies... i hope so...

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Denial?

dberlind 25th Jan 2005

bkenny: in your estimation, what other dominating companies have been in open source denial?

db

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What a question!

bkenny 25th Jan 2005

Wow, where to start.. I don't have much time at the moment so i'll be brief in my rebuttle. In many debates of this scale, evolution and other human learning barriers come to mind. Why you ask! The withholding of information from the human race leads to a level track learning system. Since we don't know all the who's, what's, where's and why' we can only work with the knowledge we are givin. Therefore, if more open source is realese, more of our questions relating are answered.

Sorry, im veering of edge a little. To your question "what other dominating companies have been in open source denial?". I will have to take the answer that most people spring to, Microsoft. I know, to people reading this, bit of an anticlimax to bring Microsoft into the equation. But they ARE in open source denial, how long before they step to the plate and annouce a product is being release, with SOURCE CODE.

Sun have taken the first step, and hopefully, some will follow..

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What about SCO

venve@... 25th Jan 2005

I think the question I would ask is how their license with SCO --
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-1024633.html --
affects their ability to open-source it.

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SCO has nothing to do with it ...

mwagner@... 25th Jan 2005

Sun, was a co-developer of SVR4 with AT&T. Thus, Sun is the only UNIX (SVR4) vendor who remains untouchable by SCO. (All of the FreeBSD derivative products -- like Mac OS X -- have already been freed of IP issues long ago!) IBM, Novell, HP, and the Various Linux vendors are all susceptible to SCO scrutiny -- at least until the courts rule as to Novell's IP rights to SVR4. Whomever ends up buying SCO will end up in a face-off with Sun -- and perhaps Novell, in a three-way race for the UNIX/Linux desktop.

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Missing a piece of the puzzle...

No_Ax_to_Grind 25th Jan 2005

While there is a good deal of speculation on exactly how Solaris will be released, and there are questions about how the licnese is applied, the biggest question in the back of my mind is how does Microsoft play into this hand.

The more I read, the more I am convinced there was a great deal more to the Sun/MS agreement a few months ago than just the exchange of dollars. I'm thinking we will get the first hint of that with today's "suprise" announcement. My bet? MS Office will be ported (or has been) to Solaris 10.