Ambient_Developer's Journal: Sun, and the confusion.

These days Sun seems to be getting some heat for their actions toward Open Source. Some of these most notable, are the Cross Patient Licensing Deal with Microsoft. Also for CDDL, and making OpenSolaris, and their 1600 patients CDDL only. Here is the things people tend to forget about. With SCO-Like lawsuits looming, to put it simply SUN is not putting all of it's eggs in one basket. Unlike it's competitor (IBM), Sun it trying to play things safe till the heat dies down. This is not to say that SUN is no longer interested in the GPL, that is very much untrue. When saying sun is "quote" tactical, you are very much right. With IBM all it takes is 1 (thats right 1) lawsuit to bring down one huge part of their services. Sun on the other hand is part GPL, and part non-GPL. People seem to forget about SUN recent GPL contributions, of these most notable are, "Looking Glass" (3D Desktop), and Open Office, both of these seem to aim at a sector that people are missing.. A whole prerogative, people are missing. SUN wants to replace Linux in the server market, and wants it to move to the home computing market. Just notice the release pattern,

"Open Solaris" (Server Market),
"Looking Glass" (Home Computing),
"Open Office" (Home Computing),
"Open Patients" (Most Relevant to Solaris, Server),
"Suns Linux Distro" (Home Computing),
Netbeans (Can be Home, via students, also server. Made to compete with eclipse though)

Sun has been ranting and raving about this for ages, that being Solaris is MORE powerful than Linux. People Just don't seem to hear it. Not only that if something ever did happen to the GPL, SUN would be at no loss. This is because; SUN, in the first place was never home computing. SUN wouldn't mind being home computing (which is why it is taking the chance), but the fact remains it NEVER WAS. So if SUN ever lost all those products, it would literally be at NO LOSS. Sun could go back to doing what it does best; SERVER, on the other hand if Linux did take off. Sun would ride the wave like every one else. The fact being that SUN's once close source desktop products are simply thee thing to have, in the desktop environment. This is being tactical, and just plain SMART! Now think about this; we all love IBM, but then again what (Once Closed Source) Company has published the most usable tools for the home desktop? I will tell you now it is not IBM. It's probably a tie between Netscape/Sun as far as code, SUN has given more. It is just a fact that (naturally, like any UNIX company) SUN doesn't see any growth of Linux in the heavy duty server market. It's just that short and sweet.