Alexander wrote:
The source code is also available, so Sun is not
denying you the fixes,
they're just not providing free binaries to everyone.
Updates are a form of support, and support costs.
I know, I know, that everything costs something... And a community of users is also a very expensive thing...
Let's see at other open source operating systems:
FreeBSD ports and release branch - updated regularly, updates are free
Different Linux distros:
Debian - updated regularly, updates are free
Ubuntu - updated regularly, updates are free
CentOS - updated regularly, updates are free
And Sun decided (may be quite late) to make Solaris an open source OS world... Isn't it good to stick to the best traditions? :)
It is open source. Even Richard Stallman has made it very clear that
there is nothing wrong with charging for binaries, and has frequently
used that as an example for companies that want to produce open source
software.
And none of the distributions you mentioned are primarily produced by a
publicly-owned company. They have significant volunteer bases that do
the majority of the development, etc. Or they have significant
corporate or private sponsorship that allows them to give everything
away for free.
You're also implying that comparing OpenSolaris to any of those makes it
equal in terms of support, etc. However, I think most people would
agree that OpenSolaris is closer to RedHat Enterprise Linux than Debian,
Fedora, etc. I will assume that you did not intentionally omit that,
since RedHat does not provide free updates for RHEL.
If OpenSolaris is superior in value to you (DTrace, ZFS, zones, etc.),
and you need stability, guaranteed fixes, etc. I don't think that it is
unreasonable to ask that you pay for support.
Now whether the prices of that support are reasonable is up to you and
something you should provide feedback about to Sun directly through
customer service.
Cheers,
--
Shawn Walker
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