Sun to open source Solaris

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0602suntoop.html

By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service
06/02/04

After months of hinting about its intentions, Sun on Wednesday
confirmed that it intends to release source code from its Solaris
operating system under an open source licence.

Sun spokesman Russ Castronovo confirmed that an open source Solaris is
in the works, but he declined to reveal any significant details about
the project including what software license Sun would be using,
whether all of the components of the operating system would be
open-sourced and when, exactly, Sun intended to release an open source
Solaris.

"At this time it's in the development phase," said Castronovo. "We're
in the thinking about it stage, and looking at details," he said. "The
are a million details to work out."

The debate over whether or not to open source Solaris has been a
contentious one, according to sources within Sun. As recently as
Tuesday, Sun CEO Scott McNealy was claiming that it would make little
sense for Sun to freely release such a valuable asset.

But Sun has, in fact, released a number of open source software
products to date, including the OpenOffice productivity suite,
components of the Gnome desktop, and the Tomcat servlet container.  
However, the company has, until now, declined to release its most
important software assets -- Solaris and the Java platform -- under an
open source license.

While the central kernel of the Solaris operating system includes some
interesting technology, an open source Solaris will need to
materialize within the next few months if it is to be of any interest
to developers, said Eric Raymond, founder of the Open Source
Initiative, a nonprofit corporation created to help companies develop
open source software licenses. "If they don't get this done within six
months, it's not going to matter at all because Linux is advancing too
fast," he said.

Sun has lost a significant portion of its business to Linux servers
running on inexpensive Intel-based systems. Linux server shipments
grew by 57% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2004, while sales
of Unix servers declined by 3% during that time, according to industry
research firm IDC.

The fact that Sun is now planning to open source Solaris is somewhat
ironic, Raymond said. "It is a matter of record that Linux was written
because Solaris was too expensive and was closed source," he said. "If
they had open-sourced it in 1990 or sooner, Linux would never have
happened."



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