Farewell To OpenSolaris. Oracle Just Killed It Off.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Farewell To OpenSolaris. Oracle Just Killed It Off.

Oracle has finally announced their plans for Solaris operating system and OpenSolaris platform and it's not good. OpenSolaris is now effectively dead and there will not be anymore OpenSolaris releases -- including the long-delayed 2010 release. Solaris will still live-on and Oracle is busy working on Solaris 11 for a release next year and there will be a "Solaris 11 Express" as being a similar product to OpenSolaris, but it will only ship after Oracle's enterprise release...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODUwNQ

[stan]

This could have been forseen from the moment Sun chose a GPL-incompatible license for Solaris. If OpenSolaris had been GPL, the best parts of both operating systems could have been merged to yield something great for FOSS users like you and me.

FOSS developers and users, if you know what's good for you, stick with Linux!

[archibald]

FOSS developers and users, if you know what's good for you, stick with Linux!

You are advocating staying with a kernel having just bashed a class of licences. Whilst I'm certainly not happy about OpenSolaris being killed off, please don't make the mistake of assuming that FOSS equates solely to linux/the GPL. Whatever your opinion of the BSDs and other systems, do you not agree that a monoculture is bad?

I don't wish to get into a licence `discussion' (read: flame-war) but please remember that Linux isn't the only alternative operating system.

For the record: I think "FOSS" is a not-terribly-useful term, the "Free" term has been the cause of much dispute about which of BSD/GPL is actually Free/is more Free, and "Open Source" seems to mean very little other than that, under certain unspecified conditions, the source may be viewed. Given that the conditions are never specified, I don't see that the term is useful (at least not when discussing the issue with people that are aware of the finer details).

As per usual, feel free to explain anything that I have misunderstood.

[FunkyRider]

You are advocating staying with a kernel having just bashed a class of licences. Whilst I'm certainly not happy about OpenSolaris being killed off, please don't make the mistake of assuming that FOSS equates solely to linux/the GPL. Whatever your opinion of the BSDs and other systems, do you not agree that a monoculture is bad?

I don't wish to get into a licence `discussion' (read: flame-war) but please remember that Linux isn't the only alternative operating system.

For the record: I think "FOSS" is a not-terribly-useful term, the "Free" term has been the cause of much dispute about which of BSD/GPL is actually Free/is more Free, and "Open Source" seems to mean very little other than that, under certain unspecified conditions, the source may be viewed. Given that the conditions are never specified, I don't see that the term is useful (at least not when discussing the issue with people that are aware of the finer details).

As per usual, feel free to explain anything that I have misunderstood.

Oh I'm sorry, but your rant doesn't mean anything. OpenSolaris is still dead

[allquixotic]

OpenSolaris may be dead, but the source code of the existing Solaris programs will continue to be released as open source. They're just releasing it after a delay. This is sorta like that one guy who made an article that Michael published, advocating "eventual open sourcing" after costs have been paid -- except that, presumably, Oracle will release Solaris whether or not it's profitable.

Still, this is on the low end of the definition of open source:

• They've got binary blobs, which they've always had, but they say they're free to introduce more binary blobs if management decides that's what they want to do.
• They've got open source stuff under the CDDL, which they say will stay CDDL for the future, but the code won't be published until the commercially-licensed enterprise product hits the shelves. How long the delay will be likely will determine the pragmatic community's reaction to this.
• They've got the Oracle Technology Network for people who want up-to-the-minute access to their development trees, but presumably this'll cost more than pocket change, effectively putting it out of reach of individual developers, contributors, and users.

On the upside, the Sun engineers contributing to GNOME, X, gcc, etc will keep their jobs! I think this is the best news to come out of the message. These guys don't just contribute Solaris compat fixes; they actually add (often major) features, the better part of which are cross platform.

Both the Linux and the Solaris developers are guilty of releasing things that aren't cross-platform friendly, so let's not bring that into the discussion.

In summary, I think this is devastating to the open community "bazaar" model of development, but it is still friendly to people who want to use OpenSolaris on servers -- both large enterprises (who will fork over the money for Solaris 11) and small businesses (who will wait until the open source version is released, then piggyback off of that).

The winners are medium and big business and Oracle. The losers are individuals, developers, students, and desktop users. This announcement just confirms that (Open)Solaris is never going to be a factor on the desktop or the home server.

I don't think the CDDL particularly threatens the Free/Open Source way of life. But the way I see it, the "spirit" of Free Software lies with the bazaar development model, where your sources are open unconditionally, not just after a period of time. Oracle may say they release 98% of their code under an OSI-certified license, but this doesn't make them a friendly open source citizen.

I just don't get how on the one hand, btrfs is as open as any other Free Desktop technology; whereas Solaris has to be hoarded like the king's crown jewels. And these both coming from the same company. I guess in such a large organization you get managers with different opinions doing different things.

[anarki2]

"Oracle has effectively put a bullet in their head"

i'm amazed how you're able to run a company with so little business sense.

[not.sure]

They seem to realize that it didn't make much sense to buy Sun in the first place. So killing OpenSolaris and at least trying to make bit of money from java through lawsuits is what they came up with....

[sirdilznik]

No surprise here. The moment Oracle bought Sun, and I'm still not sure why, Open Solaris was instantly dead in the water, it was just a matter of when Oracle would make it official. It will be interesting to see what happens with Illumos. Honestly I don't expect much to come of it but I wish the best of luck to all the contributors dedicated to that platform. Similarly I expect the closed source Solaris to continue it's downward trend. Closed source Unix is a dinosaur, it's time has passed, it's just a matter of when it dies completely.

[Ragas]

Closed source Unix is a dinosaur, it's time has passed, it's just a matter of when it dies completely.

I think some apple guys won't agree there with you ....

[curaga]

Now, everyone who was surprised by this move, raise your hands.