> I've said it before, that I personally don't know why > Oracle would spend millions developing Solaris 10 and > spend millions developing OpenSolaris when > OpenSolaris isn't a revenue generator. I don't buy > into "it's the development model" line either. Funny > that I never heard it was the development model when > OpenSolaris was initially released. Would have > thought that would have been stated. And never heard > that with the 2008 and 2009 releases. I only started > hearing that in the last few months.
Personally, I am of the view that Sun's original decision to release Solaris in the form of OpenSolaris was absolutely the right decision to ensure Solaris' maintenance and growth as a platform by making it available to developers and technicians (thereby encouraging its application in commerce). The alternative is a closed model which has lead to many "enterprise" operating systems such as VMS falling into relative disuse largely due to the total cost of deployment. I would have said that, by virtue of open sourcing, both individuals and commercial enterprises have been significantly more likely to deploy (Open)Solaris than they have been to deploy such operating systems as HP-UX, AIX and SCO's OpenServer, all other things being equal. SGI's IRIX has been EOL'd and replaced for RedHat's or SUSE's Enterprise Linux on SGI equipment and for many Internet-based technologies, the trend has been to deploy either Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD or FreeBSD or even Windows Server. Internally, it appears the vast majority of companies are deploying Windows at the departmental level to access technologies such as SharePoint. Every deployment of (Open)Solaris creates a relationship with its publisher that may or may not lead to a support contract and revenue generation; and as applications become more critical to the user's business, support payments are all the more likely. Every deployment of a platform other than (Open)Solaris provides the publisher of that platform and the publisher of applications for that platform with revenue opportunities. A Windows shop may deploy .NET technologies coupled with MS SQL Server whereas a Linux shop may be as likely to install IBM Websphere and DB2 as they are to install anything from Oracle. Presumably much current kernel / OS development by Sun / Oracle (with the exception of new technologies such as ZFS, DTrace etc) is limited to the development of new device drivers for Sun / Oracle's own equipment, the development of easy installation technologies or to the onward development of existing technologies such as ZFS to include encryption etc. Some of these tasks may be naturally closed-source projects (as in silicon-specific device drivers), and others require substantial testing before making available to commercial customers. This latter testing phase may, in effect, be partially outsourced to "enthusiasts" through the open source model. Oracle could address its effort and financial resource to improve its non-open product offering (Solaris) at the expense of the open variant (OpenSolaris) but, in my view, by doing so it would simply reduce its sales opportunities rather than increase them: the platform typically follows the business applications developed for them. Reducing developer's exposure to the platform reduces the availability of applications for that platform (and its features) so reducing the likelihood of deployment. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
