So Sun claims they will be releasing (portions of) Solaris under an Open Source license. Good for them. However, I predict that they will be unable to release enough of the code under an Open Source license to provide a usable system in the near term. In a few years they might be able to build up a usable system.

What I'm saying is that whatever eventually comes out of OpenSolaris isn't going to be Solaris. And that isn't a bad thing. Although I believe that those developer hours are wasted when they could be spent improving Linux. Linux has vast industry support and is missing a very small number of features found in Solaris. Holding on to their lofty dreams of domination will push them into obsolescence along with Solaris itself.

Linux and GNU are about freedom of choice, vendor independence, and creating the universal operating system. I hope people don't confuse those points with publishing source code and providing unique tools to make developer and administrator lives easier. Open access to source code is vitally important but not if it means you are forever trapped in one vendor's environment.

Labels: linux, unix