Open Source Solaris?
September 14, 2004 Leave a comment
Sun announced (for the second time I think) that Solaris will be open sourced, or at least have an open source project based on it. I find it difficult to get excited about this one until I 1) see what license they will be using and 2) actually see it happen. Even then, one has to wonder if this is too little, too late. Sun used to be a really innovative company, but more recently they have fumbled on the Java issues, flip flopped on Linux, and just generally fallen behind. With quotes like “We lost sight of being an innovative leader who is active in the developer community”, at least they seem to be looking at themselves realistically. One also has to wonder how much of the Solaris code they actually can open. They mention some device drivers being off limits, but I can't imagine that is the only code left in Solaris that does not belong to Sun. We'll have to see I guess..
–jeremy