More of my sites

WinInfo Daily News
SuperSite for Windows
Windows IT Pro Magazine
Connected Home
Thurrott Dot Com
Windows Weekly at TWIT

About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, June 07, 2004

Why It Makes Sense for Sun to Open-Source Java Libraries & Solaris Kernel

Linuxworld.com: " It makes a lot of sense for Sun to open source the Java Libraries and Solaris Kernel. It's sound business for Sun to (a) Open source license the Java J2SE,J2EE and J2ME framework libraries; and (b) Release a fork of the Solaris Kernel under the GPL license. It would benefit the entire Java based industry - including the free software, open source, and proprietary based vendors - to open license the core J2ME, J2SE, J2EE libraries and Java to bytecode compilers. Java's primary strength, the ability to write code which is constantly portable across many vendors platforms, would be greatly enhanced if all of the vendors were using the same core libraries ... Releasing a fork of the Solaris Unix Kernel makes even more sense when you consider Sun's move towards commodity based hardware, like AMD's opteron, and enterprise desktop systems. Sun is going to need drivers to interoperate with x86 hardware and common peripherals. In comparison to Linux, the range and quality of hardware drivers available to Solaris is pitiful. If Sun can manage to get out from under the SCO Group's claims over the old AT&T code base, by dealing direct with Novell who still appear to hold the rights and copyrights, then Sun would be free to release a fork of the Solaris kernel under the GPL license. Sun would be then free to take any source code from the Linux kernel and incorporate it into the GPL'ed Solaris kernel fork. Sun would then free to deploy that kernel in desktop and clustered systems markets, where Linux currently does have a lead over Sun."

It's unclear what Sun's really doing with Java and Solaris, because of conflicting public statements from various Sun executives. I think it's time for Sun to get it together and figure out whether it's going to embrace open source. My opinion? The company is toast if it does anything less.

[ Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink ]