Linux and Open Source

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols & Paula Rooney
Home / News & Blogs / Linux and Open Source

Oracle taking back OpenSolaris

By | March 31, 2010, 5:35am PDT

Summary: Oracle is now going to try and make people pay for software that includes contributions from a community which believed in good faith it was building an open source product.

Before being acquired by Oracle, Sun Microsystems had built substantial open source momentum.

That momentum was one of the big reasons Oracle bid for the company, whose revenues always were (and are) dominated by hardware.

But Oracle is not interested in credibility. It wants cash. So to all those who bought into Sun’s story about making Solaris open as OpenSolaris, ha-ha!

The registration process to receive an Entitlement Document is part of the Solaris download process, with the Entitlement Document being returned to you via e-mail. For this reason, YOU MUST PROVIDE A WORKING E-MAIL ADDRESS AS PART OF YOUR SUN DOWNLOAD CENTER ACCOUNT. If you fail to do so, you will not receive an Entitlement Document and will only have the right to evaluate Solaris for 90 days.

The Entitlement Document is an adjunct to the Software License Agreement (SLA) that always accompanies the Solaris Operating System software. The SLA sets forth the terms under which Sun Microsystems, Inc. allows an end user to use the Solaris software for evaluation purposes for 90 days and is a binding legal agreement between Sun and the end user.

Translation. Open Solaris isn’t open at all. It’s now 90-day trialware. Then you buy it or lose it. Given the way the software is usually used — in scaled enterprise systems — this puts users east of the rock and west of the hard place.

Savio Rodrigues of Infoworld first discussed this Friday, including a link to Sun’s old terms for the software.

Former co-blogger Joe Brockmeier writes,  “it has to be extremely difficult to be on the community side of OpenSolaris these days.” Zonker has a way with understatement.

I tend to be more blunt. This is called taking it back. There is no longer such a thing as Open Solaris, and I think anyone who bought Sun’s promises on building an open alternative to Linux just got punked.

Oracle is now going to try and make people pay for software that includes contributions from a community which believed in good faith it was building an open source product. Oracle has long sold something called Unbreakable Linux. Anyone ever heard of unbreakable contract?

Do OpenSolaris users have a case? Or would the community be better off taking the most recent purely open source version and just forking it? Can they, when Oracle controls the copyrights?

Stay tuned.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “Linux and Open Source”

Topics

Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.

At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog.

DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air.

My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement, and dozens of other publications over the years.

Related Discussions on TechRepublic

Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?
Ask a Question Start a Discussion
52
Comments
Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Just In

ice maker
ice makers 12th Nov
my blog not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any suggestions to help fix this issue? ice machine
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
That's Solaris, not OpenSolaris
heringcheng 31st Mar 2010
The quoted text seems to refer to Solaris, the commercial version, and not OpenSolaris, the open-source one. Am I missing something?
0 Votes
+ -
No you're not.
Jeremy-UK 31st Mar 2010
But there is more to the story. I just spoke to someone at Oracle, they
don't have a plan for OpenSolaris. Yeah - exactly. Solaris upon which
OpenSolaris is built is now closed source. So the bits of Solaris that
use that codebase are gone.

What exactly does that leave? The GNU parts, and that's not a
functioning OS. So while the story confuses "open" Solaris and
OpenSolaris the thrust is still correct. People who contributed to
OpenSolaris has only two choices, give up on their work, or fork
OpenSolaris.

Trouble is, at this point I don't see enough momentum to make a fork
as success.

Worse, I think Oracle just made Solaris irrelevant. You can't get the
source code anymore.

Why have they done this? Well I don't want to say; "because they are
insane" but honestly I don't follow the logic.

Solaris is "free" (as in no cost) for 90 days, then if you want the
patches you pay. You don't get the source code. Now honestly, who
runs an enterprise grade OS without a support contract? Yeah,
hobbyists, students, and crazy people. Now Linux is popular here (and
other places too) but not Solaris. So how many people are we actually
talking about? Now of this tiny number how many are actually likely to
say "Oh OK, you got me, I better buy a support contract"? Yeah,
exactly: so close to zero as makes no difference. Net gain to Oracle:
zero. How many enterprise customers are likely to freak out about the
loss of the source code? Probably a sizeable fraction. What about
Solaris "mindshare" is that likely to be improved? No, quite the
reverse. What about engineering from the community? Well now there
is none at all. I think "insane" covers this...

IBM must be laughing themselves silly.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
silvermessenger 18th Aug
@Jeremy-UK I'm the same way, I do my best to remain neutral. It's hard, if you communicate with the person the other person dislikes, then you fall out of favor with them! I simple can't dislike a person, just because someone else does, I just can't.
Buy Assignment Custom Admission Essay Dissertation Help Coursework Help
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
musdahi Updated - 25th Sep
Oracle taking back about it is bank that website attacked from the site support from any soldier site to the light home page is great OpenSolaris
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
musdahi 30th Oct
Oracle is now going to try and make people pay for software that includes a home of google update a site compare with linux a contact site from another big company a website which upgrade always a home page is the best contributions
0 Votes
+ -
yeah, it's solaris only as of now
thahier 2nd Apr 2010
yeah, it's solaris only as of now
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
snedkere Updated - 3rd Jun
Can't say I am surprised to see this.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
edward polling Updated - 3rd Jul
This is good news if oracle really taking back OpenSolaris. May be Oracle hope they will get benefits from ipad bag blog sutudeg education news and pclos hwdb that. l
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
Arabalar Updated - 6th Aug
@heringcheng I see the pricing has been release, bot can't find anyplace that mentioned how much storage is included. While the licensing costs are very reasonable, I wonder if there are any surprise costs. i.e. how much storage is included in the 25 user plan and how much does it cost for extra storage? sukubidu oyunlari karayip korsanlari - grey away -
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
blu_z 31st Mar 2010
Solaris 10 is a commercial product and always has been, and is not open source. While the new pricing structure gives it a greater cost of entry, particularly at the low end, nothing has changed at all for the open source OpenSolaris.

Five years ago Sun adopted a business model of licensing the OS and charging for support only. A lot of people thought that it was crazy at the time. Sun continued to lose money and now that it has been acquired, Oracle is going back to a traditional business model more in keeping with its own experience. But none of this has anything to do with OpenSolaris.
0 Votes
+ -
not a big deal
Linux Geek 31st Mar 2010
I don't think there was much contribution from the community so Oracle can have it.
As long as M$ gets hammmered with it, the OSS community is better of.
0 Votes
+ -
It does look like you have confused Solaris and openSolaris
storm14k 31st Mar 2010
The license terms you link to are for Solaris. The terms
for openSolaris are here

http://www.opensolaris.com/get/index.jsp#licenseterms

Is something missing here. Or is this another one of
those times where you just try to drop in and cover
something you aren't to familiar with? lmao
0 Votes
+ -
Fork it,
John Zern 31st Mar 2010
and tell Oracle to go "fork-off" happy
0 Votes
+ -
ok that one made me laugh
Quebec-french 31st Mar 2010
A lots thx you ... Ill have to remember it and
use it as a derivative.

have a forking good day
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi Updated - 13th May 2011
GOOD derivative. This is called taking it back. There is no longer such a thing as Open Solaris, and I think anyone who bought Sun?s promises on building an open alternative to Linux just got punked.
al visit am visit an visit ao visit ap visit aq visit ar visit as visit at visit au visit av visit aw visit ax visit ay visit az visit ba visit bb visit bc visit bd visit be visit bf visit bg visit bh visit bi visit bk visit bl visit bm visit bn visit bo visit bp visit bq visit br visit bs visit bt visit bu visit bv visit bw visit bx visit by visit
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi Updated - 13th May 2011
Controversial article I though. Oracle is now going to try and make people pay for software that includes contributions from a community which believed in good faith it was building an open source product. Oracle has long sold something called Unbreakable Linux. bt visit bu visit bv visit bw visit bx visit by visit bx visit bz visit ci cj ck cl cl cm cn co cp cq cr cs ct cu cv k
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi Updated - 13th May 2011
LOL, good one.. +1 Former co-blogger Joe Brockmeier writes, ?it has to be extremely difficult to be on the community side of OpenSolaris these days.? Zonker has a way with understatement. a visit b visit c visit d visit e visit f visit g visit h visit i visit j visit k visit l visit m visit n visit o visit p visit q visit r visit s visit t visit u visit v visit w visit x visit y visit z visit aa visit ab visit ac visit ad visit ae visit af visit ag visit ah visit ai visit aj visit ak visit
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
s4rg3 31st Mar 2010
I noticed you included an opensolaris.com logo in your article. In your research for this article, did you bother to go to opensolaris.com or opensolaris.org and try the download yourself? You are confusing Solaris with OpenSolaris.
0 Votes
+ -
If Oracle punk users they will regret it
Quebec-french Updated - 31st Mar 2010
I truly hope that is a mistake from Dana and not a
real
grab on open solaris
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
donniet 31st Mar 2010
Dana, when are you going to start researching your news items before spreading false information?

I saw the news about this on Monday's Distrowatch weekly. The change in licensing is for Solaris, not OpenSolaris.
0 Votes
+ -
Exactly
mikeken763 31st Mar 2010
I was reading this article saying to myself, "What the hell is this guy talking about." Don't write about things you are not at all involved in and never have been.

You cannot take back the licensing to an open source software such as open solaris. Besides, the source is already out there and thousands of people probably have it.
0 Votes
+ -
Where's the apology?
cgarrett 31st Mar 2010
You need to retract or update this article right now. This is an uninformed piece of junk article. OpenSolaris != Solaris.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi Updated - 27th Feb 2011
Yes, may be I agree with you.

al visit am visit an visit ao visit ap visit aq visit ar visit as visit at visit au visit av visit aw visit ax visit ay visit az visit ba visit bb visit bc visit bd visit be visit bf visit bg visit bh visit bi visit bk visit bl visit bm visit bn visit bo visit bp visit bq visit br visit bs visit bt visit bu visit bv visit bw visit bx visit by visit
0 Votes
+ -
This Article is Wrong!
tymiles 31st Mar 2010
Oracle making Solaris paid is no different then Open Suse and Suse or Fedora and RHEL. All the same model. You have an open source version where new development it done and those people in return get to use that software for free and in some cases get paid for their work.

And the company that owns the software gets free or low cost R&D that they roll up to their Enterprise product.

No one got punked because people making Open Solaris use Open Solaris not Enterprise Solaris. Oracle is just trying to their investment back and they deserve to.

Open Solaris is still covered by the CDDL.
0 Votes
+ -
Not really...
pwatson 31st Mar 2010
The software that they get to use does not stop working after 90 days.

The Oracle lawyers probably worked the CDDL over before the acquisition, or at least before this announcement, or are doing it right now.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi Updated - 27th Feb 2011
Yes, I think so a visit b visit c visit d visit e visit f visit g visit h visit i visit j visit k visit l visit m visit n visit o visit p visit q visit r visit s visit t visit u visit v visit w visit x visit y visit z visit aa visit ab visit ac visit ad visit ae visit af visit ag visit ah visit ai visit aj visit ak visit
0 Votes
+ -
Re: This Article is Wrong!
rossdav@... 31st Mar 2010
Well, not quite. If I understand what Oracle is saying, they are going to charge to purchase Solaris itself. Then software support is on top of that.
This is different than the model used by the OSS folks like SuSE/RH. The code is freely available - they only charge for the distribution on media, then for software support.

Not sure why you wouldn't just switch to OpenSolaris at that point, if you can get commercial support for it.

Personally - I think Solaris is dead. It doesn't differentiate itself enough to be a contender. Linux all the way. Now if we can only steal ZFS... (the only good thing that Solaris has that Linux doesn't).
0 Votes
+ -
zfs??
Aussie_linux_user 31st Mar 2010
why not xfs, btrfs, ext4, and I believe there are some other new ones on the way..
0 Votes
+ -
Solaris is lightyears ahead of Unix-wannabes like Linux
Unix_Magic 1st Apr 2010
ZFS, Dtrace, Containers, LDOMs, Network-stack virtualization (Crossbow), NPIV are a few redeeming features of Solaris/OpenSolaris that no other free OS in this world boasts of.

You prbly run Linux on your desktop. If you want to run a serious Datacenter, please go ahead and get OpenSolaris or Solaris. Let the adults do some real work in the meanwhile, while the little boys sit on the sidelines and play (on PCs).
0 Votes
+ -
Penance ...
johnfenjackson@... Updated - 31st Mar 2010
... if it is SOLARIS and not OPEN SOLARIS which ORACLE have 'taken back' then may I suggest the following penance for DB? Been trying to get Robin Harris, Jason Perlow, AK-Hughes and IT DOJO interested to no avail ...

... I think OPENSOLARIS on an old PC as an iSCSI file server would be far preferable to paying for WHS or an expensive NAS or DROBO box. Comes with the superior ZFS file system too. Just gotta get that free iSCSI target up and running on the network and Bob's your uncle!
0 Votes
+ -
This article is not correct.
amiarage@... 31st Mar 2010
You are referring to Solaris not OpenSolaris.
OpenSolaris is still freely available to developers.

The only changes is that our Sun SDN Accounts are going
to be merged with our Oracle (OTN) Accounts.

Guys, OpenSolaris is still freely available. Oracle
simply merged the Sun and Oracle websites, but the free
ISO's are available from Oracle same as always.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
tch1126 31st Mar 2010
I have been keeping track of OpenSolaris hoping that when 2010.03 is out, it would be the best version to use as a storage server as it will have zfs with dedupe. Now that it is already April and no 2010.03 is in sight, Dana may be right. If not, what is the reason 2010.03 is still not out yet?

Old Geek.
0 Votes
+ -
The best thing since sliced bread!
The Management consultant Updated - 1st Apr 2010
Lets be clear..oracles strategy is to devote all resources to devloping Solaris 11 as it serves their stategy of supporting high end ticket sales.What is odd is that opensolaris is the development verson of solaris 11.Tested in the community by sun and carries substantial investment.What oracles mangement has the beef about is that it cannot control licencing on opensolaris but it can on Solaris.Personally I use opensolaris as an ex Sun consultant and find it has great potential.It's great for personal use too!
0 Votes
+ -
The countdown has started!
The Management consultant 1st Apr 2010
I have been using the development versions of the new opensolaris release.Its currently going through testing.Its a great productivity suite and well worth the wait.Keep an eye on Youtube.As for solaris 11 there is no official date yet but will incorporate many innovations in opensolaris
0 Votes
+ -
Solaris 10 != OpenSolaris
gok_hirva@... 1st Apr 2010
Please read a little bit more about a topic before write
a post .....
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
Unix_Magic 1st Apr 2010
Solaris has always been a proprietary OS. OpenSolaris was and is Open Source still.

I think this article demonstrates how shoddy and biased opinions try to pass off as Journalism.

First rule of Journalism is reporting the truth.
Second rule of Journalism is Neutrality.

This does neither...
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
Unix_Magic 1st Apr 2010
The OpenSolaris community is "Lightyears" ahead of what is happening in the rest of the OSS world.

Name one OS which has Network stack virtualization, ZFS, OS virtualization, Hardware soft partitioning etc all rolled into one and is still Open Source?

None. Linux is an infant as compared to OpenSolaris in features, stability or functionality.

So yeah, it might be good for Oracle to take it back and bad for M$, but it is definitely not good for the OSS community in general.
0 Votes
+ -
Can we get Jason Perlow
enigmaforce 2nd Apr 2010
to do the reporting on OpenSolaris from here? At least he knows the difference between Solaris and OpenSolaris. Scary that with 30 years of tech journalism under your belt, you don't.

Thanks happy
0 Votes
+ -
Oracle says OpenSolaris stays open:
Orvar 3rd Apr 2010
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3867776/Oracle+Says+OpenSolaris+Will+Stay+Open+Source.htm

IBM's FUD is very strong. But it is FUD.
0 Votes
+ -
Correct the article!!!
anoneemouse 25th Apr 2010
This article is clearly inaccurate at best (and possibly "trash journalism" at worst). It's been more than long enough for the author or someone at ZDNet with a brain to correct it.

This reaffirms my view that ZDNet is not a trustworthy source of information.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
zakkiromi 27th Feb 2011
Controversial article i though.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
efsane Updated - 25th Apr 2011
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
sesli sohbet sesli chat
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
DeLi_Cocuk 1st Sep
asad
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
MACKENZI 10th Sep
I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate! nccma cooler
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
MARAGARET 11th Sep
I used to be more than happy to seek out this internet-site.I wanted to thanks in your time for this glorious read!! I positively enjoying each little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you weblog post. this thread is amazing i like your work and i appreciate you that you have share a useful stuff thanks for sharing the i shop abatwa
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
RHIANNONA 13th Sep
I used to be more than happy to seek out this internet-site.I wanted to thanks in your time for this glorious read!! I positively enjoying each little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you weblog post.Bookmarking now thanks please consider a follow up post. power sa shop
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
SATURNINA 13th Sep
I think the representation of this article is actually superb one. This is my first visit to your site. Thanks a lot and keep sharing the information. Keep updating the information for all of us. Thanks ZDNet Government was launched as the brand's first industry vertical, with a mission to cater to IT professionals in the public secto I agree with your post. However, do you have any sources I can cite for my paper wheel car com bury
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
TOCCAR 25th Sep
Well welcome, hopefully you can become a vital member of the community and really help to push far ahead of google. Which Im sure the development team would love. This will of course earn you alot points too and get you on the leaders board. z d n e t t h a n k Im not sure i come to an agreement with you on every level, howevor it absolutely was a good posting, many thanks for taking the time to put up your ideas.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
CLAUDET 26th Sep
This is my first visit to z d n e t site. Thanks a lot and keep sharing the information. Keep updating the information for all of us.how can i clean up, because i don???t know why it seems my skeen has to fat i get the glasses dirty every day.i search y a h o o Very good quality indeed. I surely recommend it. The template used in their site is also great.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Oracle taking back OpenSolaris
MEJIAHA 30th Sep
Fantastic news about the new release.I positively enjoying each little bit of it and I have you b o o k m a r k e d to check out new stuff you weblog post.Im not sure i come to an agreement with you on every level, howevor it absolutely was a good posting, many thanks for taking the time to put up your ideas
0 Votes
+ -
ice maker
ice makers 12th Nov
my blog not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any suggestions to help fix this issue? ice machine

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix