Sun's continuing open source problem

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RE: Sun's continuing open source problem

When I started with Java in the late 90's, I kept asking, "how will Sun make money?" I was, of course, the stupid guy in the room.

You're right, Dana, in that a company can't be half-hearted on the Open-Source commitment. On the other hand, one does have to be clever. I always questioned Sun's "we sell hardware, make open source software, and inferior commercial software (Star Office, anyone?)." Consider some companies that are thriving off of Open Source: IBM always comes to mind for their contributions in hundreds (thousands?) of open source projects. They are the hand behind many of the Apache projects, because they use open source in their services gigs (don't you want to hire the guys who wrote the API?). Adobe, on the other hand, is making a brilliant play with Adobe Flex... Flash is not open source, but anybody can compile FOR Flash using Flex.

The Java project has always suffered from Sun's comittment-to-open-source problems. How does their open source fit in to their profit model? In a world where we have several Unix variants that run reliably on cheap hardware, one has to ask where Sun is going.

Daniel
www.theSATfaq.com
Pros answers your questions about the SAT

Posted by: zdnet@...   Posted on: 05/08/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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