Re: End of "Free" Solaris binary licence program - now it's free.

From: Scott Howard (scott_at_hunterlink.net.au)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: 20 Feb 2005 01:23:58 GMT

I R A Darth Aggie <hfrarg@nttvr2x3.pbgfr.arg> wrote:
>>+ Strangely we haven't heard much from those people in the
>>+ past few weeks - probably still trying to remove their foot from their
>>+ mouths!
>
> I still haven't purchased my coat for the day hell freezes over, when
> you can get Solaris source code.

Ahh, so perhaps some of them have managed to remove their feet from their
mouths.

> I still can't lay my hands on the source of Open Solaris, can you? and

Actually, I can, but that's a different story...

OpenSolaris is happening - just it's something that will take time.
There are a reasonable number of Solaris community members who do already
have OpenSolaris source, and who even have working builds of it. eg
http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=42

> don't point me to the Dtrace code. That's all fine and dandy, but it
> ain't Solaris.

Correct, and nobody ever claimed it was. It is however some code which
we could easily release where we _knew_ there were no 3rd party licenses/
patents/etc involved. It was offered as a tempter, and to show that we
are serious about getting OpenSolaris out there just as quickly as we can!

> And there's plenty of time for Scooter to change his mind. And if he
> doesn't, so what? a year after you can get Solaris source, 95% of the
> code work will be produced by SUNW engineers. IMHO, that is. May that
> I be wrong.

The ratio of internal:external code production isn't something that will
be set by Sun - it's something which will be set by everyone else! Sun
will still produce the same amount of code as we would have otherwise,
how much the community produces will set the ratio...

  Scott.