Sun is actually doing some great stuff. I am a long-time Unix person, working with all Unix variants, recently Linux, etc..
I must say that NO OS compares to the stability and functionality of Solaris, hands-down. One enterprise Q that I pose is : "How can a large corporation depend on Linux, when no schedules of releases, bug fixes, etc.. can be made.. ??.. aside from a single vendor creating a 'proprietary' fix for their version of linux... ??" The same goes for Enterprise Support... I've seen many issues where the Linux vendor (as do MicroSoft) blames the 3rd party HBA vendor, who blames the External storage vendor, who blames the device driver... taking weeks to resolve !!.. this stuff doesn't happen with Solaris.. (most reliable,
available, supportable OS available, at the best cost..)
Solaris 10 kick the but of ANY OS out there...
Linux is supposedly Free, but how does free account for all the support costs, the scheduling delays, the vendor conflicts, etc... ?? Why not pay less for Solaris and get much, much more ??... it seems logical to me..
And as for MS, we all know their code is bloated, buggy, and will always be insecure....

Sun get married with Microsoft.
Everyone seen it.
Such as people say that "Sun give up his future"
So disappointed.
Where Sun expert can do/go? Goto Microsoft.
There is your home.

Byebye Sun.

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I have to agree with jruschme and some of the other doubters here. This looks to me like a safe bet that it will be called off because of licensing restrictions. Java wouldn't be locked up that way if Sun really wanted to open source it, but then they might have to put up or shut up.

On the other hand they do sponsor Open Office, and they just might be reading the same book that IBM has and finally realize that there isn't any big money left in operating systems.

On the other hand, if the hardware is free, and the operating system is free, and the application stack is free - what will Sun propose to make it's living with? Java? Or do they think that they will make their money on support services like IBM and Red Hat do? Of course IBM sells or leases hardware because it costs them something to make it, and Red hat doesn't mess with hardware.

I don't see this combination working to do anything but put them out of their troubles.

I dont want any so called open source if its based on SCO owned UNIX code. Linux is free of all that BS. What is the value in this to anybody, looks like more liability for everyone?

If Sun wants news why dont they make Linux run excellently on their highend multi >32cpu Sparc boxes. Or release java as open source, Im starting to see the value in that.

Okay, help me out here... I thought that Solaris was basically SVr4 Unix with a bunch of Sun extensions (OpenWindows, etc.). If so, then isn't the core OS tied up somewhere in the whole Novell/Caldera/SCO mess?

Or am I missing something here?

This move is just a FUD announcement against Red Hat and Microsoft who are kicking Sun's ass in terms of name recognition, performance, price, availability, compatibility, etc.

Open source but non-free (as in Freedom) software has its problems, even for those of us who love openness. There will always be some idiot developer who has been reading a lot of non-free, open Sun code who decides to contribute something to a GPL'ed project such as Linux - and boom, there you have it - disaster! It's "impossible" for the maintainers of Free software to be 100 % sure that contributed code is not already distributed under a non-Free license.

I bet you they will make sure that whatever licence they use is GPL-incompatible. That way Solaris code can't be incorporated into Linux. They are in effect trying to splinter the Open Source world - in a way that benefits them, and ultimately, Micro$oft.

On the assumption that this is what they do, I wouldn't go near this with a bargepole. They are clearly not motivated by wanting to make Open Source (and in particular GPL) software better, only that they think they can drive a wedge into the Open Source movement for their own gain.

Sun's idea of "open source" is sometimes a peculiar one. What license will Solaris be OSed with?

Solaris has already been open source, depending on your personal definition of 'open'. But I purchased the full source to x86/SPARC off the Sun site 4 years ago - it cost me around $40. They canned that program pretty quick.

Open-Source Java next, anyone??