On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 05:22 -0500, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > > If Oracle pulled the plug on OpenSolaris wouldn't it die? > > If oracle "pulled the plug" ... what precisely does that mean? They don't > own it. They can't forbid anyone from using it. But they do contribute a > lot to it. > > So let's rephrase. If oracle stopped contributing to opensolaris, it would > be a major setback. You could still use the current version, but in the > future, with limited development effort, the OS would likely fall behind > pace to keep up with the rest of the world. > > But there are a lot of companies using opensolaris and solaris, that have a > vested interest, some commitment to continuing with the platform ... so ... > development effort would be nonzero ... and what we're talking about is ... > in the worst case scenario ... you would have at least a year or three to > think about making your transition to a different platform.
Which is sadly where I am now. Hence my initiation of this thread. To which I note nobody from Oracle has deemed fit for comment. Think I am being paranoid? To wit: "With Sun now a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle, the acquisition is triggering a consolidation process. Part of this process is the phasing out of the public-facing domain used for the Project Kenai Beta site. This action is being undertaken to provide the best project hosting solution for all of our customers into one location. Minimizing the number of current project hosting sites is a start in this direction. The consolidation process is underway and we will post notices about the plans and timeline as they become publicly available. The end-goal is to ensure we provide even more useful resources for all of the Oracle and Java developer communities." Followed by: "Hello fellow Project Administrators, It's with a sad heart that we have to announce that the Kenai.com domain will be shutdown as part of the consolidation of project hosting sites now that Sun is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle." So bottom line is that the Kenai infrastructure is being pulled out from under FOSS developers and being repurposed internally for benefit of paying "customers". I suspect things like glassfish, OS, etc. will suffer same fate. Oracle just has to wait a bit and let things cool down before going after these higher profile projects. I would love to continue using a freely available Open/Solaris that also has freely available security updates. But I just don't see this as likely given Oracle's track record. And for those who'd point to BDB, InnoDB, etc. as evidence of Oracle's stellar open source stewardship, I'd point you to Monty's open letter to the EU, pointing to these specific examples in support of petition to deny the take over. -- Ken Gunderson <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
