Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Sun Microsystems Software

Sun Joins the Free Software Foundation 116

Posted by Zonk from the putting-themselves-out-there dept.
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?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Sun Joins the Free Software Foundation More

Sun Joins the Free Software Foundation

Comments Filter:

  • Free Solaris for everyone!

  • What this means (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pooh666 ( 624584 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:35PM (#18199480)
    Is Linux has a new and very adept competitor. Solaris has some GNU pains, but they won't last long, and underneath the hood is some amazing work.. It is just just ZFS, and DTRACE either, just take a look at the main page for ifconfig on Solaris vs other systems. There is a lot of depth to Solaris that will start coming out, esp on SMP systems, but on any system really.. The great thing is, Linux will have Solaris to learn from now..
    • I have a license copy of Solaris for x86 that I got with my SUNw1100 that I haven't tried out yet. I might nuke some of my Linux partition and put it there for tooling around.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      solaris is kludge on top of kludge on top of kludge. It's only "stable" because every solaris admin in his right mind never patches a working solaris install. In fact, sun's whitepapers specifically advise against patching and just firewalling the box.

      While it will be nice to see some cross pollination, solaris in it's current form will give us nothing worth more than two squirts of piss.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Ok, I can see why someone might of thought this is flamebait. Here's some proof.

        http://docs-pdf.sun.com/817-0574/817-0574.pdf [sun.com]

        Then, check this patch out:

        http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetke y=urn:cds:docid:1-21-118833-36-1 [sun.com]

        Then, check out which problems this patch solves, but obsoletes older patches that didn't solve the problem all the way. Next, check out which problems this patch fixes for other patches applied. Finally, check out which problems this patch causes (Note 74) !!!!!

        Now tell me yo
        • Ok, I can see why someone might of thought this is flamebait. Here's some proof.


          Who needs proof when GP is an Anonymous Coward and parent as well. Maybe they're just one and the same person, who knows.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "The great thing is, Linux will have Solaris to learn from now.."

      Nope. Solaris is going GPLv3, so can't be dragged back to GPLv2, which is where Linux is expected to stay for now.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 )
      There's a lot of things to learn for Solaris too (not just drivers). So both can learn things. All this can only be a good thing - the two most powerful operative systems of the world are GPL (just because Linux is going to keep GPL2 doesn't means anything) and both should be able to exchange code. Linux and solaris should be friends, the enemy here are non-GPL operative systems.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by FishWithAHammer ( 957772 )
        Linux and solaris should be friends, the enemy here are non-GPL operative systems.

        Oh, so BSD is an enemy, because it doesn't kowtow to Richard Stallman?

        You zealots make me purge.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rbanffy ( 584143 )
          No. BSD is not the enemy.

          In fact, it is friendly to everyone, including Microsoft ;-)

          In a sense, it choses its friends very poorly.

    • ugh (Score:2, Informative)

      by oohshiny ( 998054 )
      I've experienced Solaris and its predecessors from the early 80's. Their kernels used to crash from memory leaks, corrupt data, contain Trojans, use linear search in inappropriate places, crash on bad system call arguments, fold under load, and lots of other problems. It's good that after 20 years, they finally got most of the bugs out, but it's never going to be "amazing work". From a practical point of view, Linux has matured much faster, and I don't think Linux has anything to learn from Solaris.

      In th

      • Re:ugh Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @07:20PM (#18201412)
        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]
        • 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?

          You misread that. What I was saying was that I have experience with Solaris starting from the early 80's, until now.

          Solaris is built upon SVR4 while SunOS 4.x and before were based on BSD.

          Indeed. And while SVR4 was slightly less buggy, it was a worse OS than BSD. The BSD/SVR4 switch was when many people (myself included) started seriously exploring alternatives.

          Solaris 1
          • What I love is you avoid even commenting on the below because you know Solaris is more reliable and a better engineered kernel than Linux. Not hard to believe when Sun spent 500 million on Solaris 10 and have the best kernel developers in the world working on it AS A REAL JOB not part time hackers.

            If Linux is so great than why do companies like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs have linux crashing or hanging while Solaris just keeps on running? The ONLY reason people run Linux in the Enterprise is because u

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by oohshiny ( 998054 )
              What I love is you avoid even commenting on the below because you know Solaris is more reliable and a better engineered kernel than Linux.

              Because even if it were true, it wouldn't matter.

              Not hard to believe when Sun spent 500 million on Solaris 10

              Yeah, too much; it's basically an Edsel.

              and have the best kernel developers in the world working on it

              And what evidence is there for that, other than unfounded claims about Solaris quality? Your reasoning is circular.

              AS A REAL JOB not part time hackers.

              Most Linux

      • I've experienced Solaris and its predecessors from the early 80's.

        Bullshit. Solaris didn't exist until the early 90's [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:What this means (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aeoo ( 568706 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @05:54PM (#18200428) Journal
      I think this is indeed amazing. It blows my mind that perhaps Linux will stop being "it" for many people for whom it currently "is it" or "that's where it's at". To think that Solaris, from the point of view of software freedom, not only overcome FreeBSD, but also even Linux, it's pretty mind blowing to me.

      What's next? Windows Vista GPL'ed? I doubt anyone cares about any technical achievements in Vista's kernel, but on a social plane, such an event would be very interesting.
      • Not so fast. There's more to Linux than just its license. Solaris may be going GPL but it's still built in cathedral mode. And it's not quite as lightweight as Linux.

        I think what will be truly interesting to watch is that with Solaris potentially moving to GPLv3 and Linux sticking with GPLv2, Solaris will have FSF/RMS backing it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by aeoo ( 568706 )
          I agree. Linux is still good. But suddenly Solaris becomes a lot more interesting. Who is to say that Solaris is not going to adapt the bazaar development model? Don't they keep at least some of Solaris code in Mercurial VCS which is designed for decentralized development?

    • Maybe or maybe not. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Honestly, even if Sun puts Solaris under the GPL (2 OR 3), it's not automatically going to be a serious contender to Linux.

      I've worked on the Solaris O.S.. I've worked on Linux (totally the latter these past 8 years). I've put code into GPL'd projects and have worked on projects that require not only GPL licensing but that you transfer the copyright to the FSF. Here's my view.

      One of the single biggest reasons why Linux is so popular among kernel developers is that they get to keep their own copyrights. It d
    • Just be carefull and don't just cut and paste Solaris code into the Linux Distro's -- which I'm sure somebody is bound to do at some point -- Then try and plead ignorance at the license terms. And don't cry if Solaris cleans Linux's clock. OP is right, Solaris has amazing technology and Sun community still has amazing programmers.

      I wonder how many people realize how much pressure Sun has put on Microsoft. The $125m purchase of staroffice, the transformation to open office is starting to put the screws

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nevyn ( 5505 ) *

      junderneath [sic] the hood is some amazing work.. It is [n't] just just ZFS, and DTRACE either, ust [sic] take a look at the main [sic] page for ifconfig on Solaris vs other systems.

      There is still no community (hell, they have a fraction of the downloads of a single Linux distros. updating users) and Sun haven't done anything that implies they can create anything like the Linux kernel community ... so my money is still on the long term death of Solaris the OS and kernel (if they relicense it, some of th

  • best thing to happen to sun (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:39PM (#18199524) Journal
    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.
    • Mcnealy's still the chairman, just not the CEO... but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be doing all this open stuff if he wasn't supportive of it.

  • Sun opened up Java? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by defile ( 1059 )

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

    • Re:Sun opened up Java? (Score:5, Informative)

      by McDutchie ( 151611 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:43PM (#18199586) Homepage

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

      Because java doesn't insert itself magically into the apt repository the second Sun relicenses it. This takes work.

      • Why wasn't the work done before it was launched so that it was immediately usable?

        I got the new JDK a few days afterwards from Gentoo, and I think it was ready a few days before I got it.

        • Why wasn't the work done before it was launched so that it was immediately usable?

          Why do slashdorks have a pathological sense of entitlement? Haven't their mommies taught them to be patient and wait politely when someone is about to do them a huge freaking favor?

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by fireboy1919 ( 257783 )
            Entitlement? Okay, sure. Yeah. I want Debian to do me the "huge freaking favor" of downloading the jdk and keeping track of what's in the file system.

            How long does that take? I know it'd take me about five minutes (and it *shouldn't* take more for any reasonable package management system)...what is that amortized over all the users of Debian? I'm sure it comes to less than a second each. I think you may be exaggerating how much of a favor it would be for a Debian user - though I am not one.

            This has no
            • .... become the package mantainer and do it.

              Otherwise, frankly STFU, and wait like the rest of us, greateful that there are actually people doing instead of whinning.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by imroy ( 755 )

              How long does that take? I know it'd take me about five minutes...

              No, it might take five minutes for someone to create an RPM and provide it to the hordes of Fedora users on rpmfind.net. But Debian takes its time. Debian has rules about what goes into a package and how it operates. Does it install properly for a bunch of situations? Does it uninstall properly? Upgrades? And not just from the immediately previous version. Do the dependencies really pull in everything that is needed? Does it properly conflic

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by TheDreadSlashdotterD ( 966361 )
          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: (Score:2)

            by zsau ( 266209 )
            Testing is right out.

            I've been using Debian on my desktop for around two years now, and I've been using Debian Testing for all that time. Since I switched, I've heard that a few times, but have never understood why. Since 1998, I've used Gentoo, FreeBSD, Red Hat, Slackware, Ubuntu and Yellow Dog, and I've finally found a distro I'm happy to use; I've completely stopped looking.

            Why is it that I should be scared of Testing? I've heard that a package can be unusable for a month, but I've never had that happen

        • Re:Sun opened up Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Kidbro ( 80868 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @06:31PM (#18200854)
          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: (Score:2)

          by drix ( 4602 )
          Because Debian maintainers are really busy people, and it takes more than armchair quarterbitching on Slashdot to make these things happen. WTF were you doing that whole time?
        • You could just use java-package to install [debian-adm...ration.org] Java.
        • I got the new JDK a few days afterwards from Gentoo, and I think it was ready a few days before I got it.

          Some Open Source project focuses on getting the bleeding edge, latest and greatest, for people to play around with. Some focuses on being stable and only including the stuff that has been proven with time. They have very different goals and target groups.

          Picking one of the last ones and then throwing a tantrum about not getting the new stuff the same day it is released isn't the brightest thing to do in
          • It's not as cut and dried as all that. They should already have java 5 packages, and stuff that uses them.

            Well, this is the reference implementation of such a package. Further, since its all done according to a VM spec, it mostly just works.

            Given all that, the amount of testing needed shouldn't be as much as it is for other packages. I don't care about waiting for the latest unstable release of some package put out by one guy in his basement, but this isn't that. It's a HUGE player with its own testing

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by blindd0t ( 855876 )
        My understanding is that JSE6 is not GPL'd because they did not want to delay its release. This means that the old licensing concerns with distributing Java on GPL'd platforms are still a concern. Though much if not most of the JVM has already been "open source," they were not GPL'd. JSE7 will be GPL'd if all goes according to plan, however, and Sun is now aiming to go straight to the GPL3. Here is JSE6's current license [sun.com].

    • Re:Sun opened up Java? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bluesman ( 104513 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:44PM (#18199610) Homepage
      These things take time.

      Compounding the problem is that Debian is also notoriously slow to update packages. You might have better luck with apt-get Pascal or apt-get COBOL.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by EsbenMoseHansen ( 731150 )

      I really, really dislike Java, but nevertheless: Debian unstable has Sun's Java in it's repositories; I know since I have to use that mess too often at work. Not sure what the "default" install is, but I'm sure it will hit Debian stable in 5 or 6 years ;)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by xenocide2 ( 231786 )
      Because they're not done yet. Supposedly, [java.net] that'll happen soon. When that happens I imagine Debian will be among the first to distribute the GPL source derived binaries. What they have thus far is the hotspot jvm and javac. There's a few parts left, before it's really useful without the closed source tools. You're of course welcome to be skecptical until they make good on that deadline.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by defile ( 1059 )

        Every time Sun has announced that they've open sourced Java (which has been more times than you have fingers and toes), I've done apt-get install java(c) [unstable or testing, it doesn't matter] and it has NOT installed Sun's JVM, JDK, and J2SE class libraries.

        Maybe one day in the future it will. For now it's vaporware.

    • Re:Sun opened up Java? (Score:5, Informative)

      by M. Baranczak ( 726671 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:55PM (#18199712)
      It's not open-source yet. These things take time, be patient. I think they said they'll finish the process by the middle of 2007.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Virgil Tibbs ( 999791 )
      what would be an equally interesting question is when apt will be ported to solaris?
      when that happens, i'm migrating.

    • Re:Sun opened up Java? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jZnat ( 793348 ) * on Thursday March 01, 2007 @05:46PM (#18200290) Homepage Journal
      Because the package name is sun-java6-jdk (and others in sun-java6-*), and it's in non-free (or multiverse on Ubuntu).

      Java 7 will be released under GPL3, so expect to see that in main.
    • Sun has promised that they will open up Java in Java 7, but current versions are still not fully available under an open source license. For better or for worse, I expect that Java 7 will be incorporated into Debian and other distros.

      I would recommend against making any plans that depend on Sun actually delivering a fully open source Java implementation: even assuming Sun is being completely honest, there are still things beyond their control that might jeopardize it.
    • The javac compiler and Hotspot VM are available now [java.net], under GPL2.

      The truly useful stuff, the class libraries, will be available later this year.

      Rome wasn't built in a day...

      In the meantime, you can install java with apt, even if it isn't 'free' yet:

      Installing Sun Java on Debian [java.net]. Note that this page may be a little out of date. I'm running JDK 6 under Ubuntu Feisty. The relevant Java packages are sun-java6-*

  • Brings a whole new meaning to... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:41PM (#18199556)
    Everything under the Sun must go!

  • Disturbance in the Force (Score:5, Funny)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Thursday March 01, 2007 @05:05PM (#18199828) Journal

    I just felt a tremendous disturbance in the Force. It was if millions of slashbots cried out in pain as their heads asploded.

    With apologies to the late Sir Alec.

  • I hope this extends to their Sun Ray line. I've been looking a various thin client solutions for a company a couple of friends and I are planning. I really like their thin client platform, but the custom protocol and closed server app (though it runs on both linux and solaris) give me pause. For example, I would like the flexibility to boot a PC as a Sun Ray client - not that I'd want to on a permanent basis, but in a pinch - say until I could order more Sun Ray terminals - it would be nice. With more o
  • 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

Slashdot Top Deals

"The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, `What does woman want?'" -- Sigmund Freud

Close