Sun Joins the Free Software Foundation

RLiegh writes "Ars Technica reports that Sun has joined the FSF Corporate Patron program. The article explains that the FSF corporate program allows companies to provide financial assistance to the FSF in return for license consulting services. The article goes on to observe that this move is doubtlessly motivated by Sun's interest in GPL3's direction. Now that Sun has opened up Java and become an FSF corporate sponsor...could the move to dual license OpenSolaris under the GPL3 be far behind?"

best thing to happen to sun

[WindBourne]

was to get rid of Mcnealy. I am betting that Sun will be back quite a bit stronger in about 2-3 years time. It sounds like the new CEO is not wanting to play games esp. with the OSS world.

Sun opened up Java?

[defile]

If this is true, how come I can't ``apt-get install java'' and get the SUn Java on Debian default install?

Re:Is it really doubtless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun has contributed more free software than you or the rest of your complaining chorus will ever write in your lives. You don't have to like them, but Sun certainly doesn't have to listen to you.

Re:Is it really doubtless?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Well, there're lot of companies who are "patrons" of FSF. Google, Intel, Nokia, Cisco, IBM. So I don't think they're trying to buy anything - but it doesn't means they're super-pro-FSF either (just look who are the other "patron" corporations). Sun has been using FSF products for a lot of time, it was already time for Sun to do this. Not that this is a bad thing, but it looks like people understood "Sun is becoming FSF's right hand", which is far from true.

Re:What this means

[pooh666]

I meant Learn != Copy :)

Re:And this can mean only one thing

[Arcane_Rhino]

Dude, that is an awesome sig.

(No response needed or wanted.)

Re:Sun opened up Java?

[Virgil Tibbs]

what would be an equally interesting question is when apt will be ported to solaris?
when that happens, i'm migrating.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sun opened up Java?

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

You obviously don't understand Debian.

It usually takes years for Debian stable to see the latest and greatest of today. This is why most normal people use unstable and people wanting a server use stable. Testing is right out.

If that still confuses you, then please switch to Ubuntu.

Re:Sun opened up Java?

[Kidbro]

Because you didn't do it. We were all expecting you to fix it, and only now you tell us that you were waiting for someone else!?

Bastard!

Re:ugh Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I've experienced Solaris and its predecessors from the early 80's. Their kernels used to crash

You have experience with Solaris but don't realize that Solaris is based on a different code base than predecessors from the early 80's? Solaris is built upon SVR4 while SunOS 4.x and before were based on BSD.

The reason why Solaris was the OS of the dot com era was because is was so reliable. At the Brokerage firms I've worked at you always see Linux crash or hang and Solaris just keeps on running. That's been my experience.

And remember Solaris was designed from the beginning to support SMP, threading, and soft real-time. Things that Linux only later had hacked on (and soft real-time is still not part of Linux).

Solaris 10 [sun.com] is so far ahead of Linux that it's not even worth comparing the two but if you must just look at these New features. [sun.com]

Clash of the titans, or a useful alliance?

[Skeith]

I've heard some very strong opinions on Linus wanting Linux to remain gplv2. Some even suggest replacing Linux with Solaris. What I'm wondering is the same companies that helped Linux become what it is today make the transition? Open source is rarely run on kindness and love for humanity. Linux has reached critical mass, and I don't think GPL'ing even a product as good as solaris will derail it.

Both Solaris and Linux would benefit immensely from sharing with each other. But whos ever heard of two competing products helping each other.

Re:Is it just me...

[bberens]

Well, if the license becomes GPL3 then the userland stuff WILL BE gnu utiltities. If anything you'll have the choice, or the two will be combined together like some sort of inbred half-cousin. It'll be exciting. =)