[wellylug] Sun confirms plans to open source Solaris

[Rob Giltrap]

Simon Anderson wrote:

>Windows and Linux aren't the competitive threat per se, because Solaris 
>outclasses both of them by quite some distance. 
>
>The threat (more than a threat, one could argue this is a battle Sun has 
>already lost) is to Sparc RISC technology from commodity x86. 
>  
>
Which is why they are so hyped about Opteron, they just put John Fowler, 
one of their up and coming superstar (and technically competent) 
managers in charge of the rapidly expanding Opteron product line and 
have gotten back Sun Employee #1 Andy B with his Opteron techo company.

>Open Sourcing (which in Sun's case != GPL) Solaris and expanding deals 
>with hardware manufacturers like they just did with Fujitsu are an effort 
>to breathe life into the Sparc platform.
>
>Sun after all, (as their drunken VP of Marketing for Europe confessed to 
>me one 4am) sells tin.
>  
>
Hehe, I'm sure he did! But not anymore... With Jonathon Schwartz in 
charge they are truly going "Systems" rather than just talking about it. 
This gets Sun back to it's workstation roots, pulling together commodity 
parts and producing great systems, just that now it is not just hardware 
and an OS but a much larger software stack. This process has only just 
started but it is well on track.

>The difference between Sun and the other traditional Unix vendors is that 
>Solaris is still in the game.
>
And playing the game they are...

- JDS & Star/OpenOffice are having freakishly good success where tipping 
points are being reached in some markets.
- The new SPARC CMT chips really are a trump card because they not only 
make for a better chip but also revolutionise the chip design process so 
you don't have billion dollar fiascos like Itanium.
- Solaris x86 (now that it is getting the treatment by Sun it deserves) 
is getting huge support
- Solaris 10 is cool and sets Sun up for some real "Systems" plays
- The new management team are awesome, no more technically savvy but 
really marketing managers. The senior ranks are now filled with 
marketing savvy but really technical engineering managers. It's back to 
the good old days of engineering first.

Now I just have one question.... Once Solaris goes open source will 
WellyLug become WellySlug?!?