Oracle puts an end to OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris is discontinued.

When Oracle bought Sun, some feared for the continuity of OpenSolaris. A few months ago a change in the license rekindled those fears , and now finally been confirmed in an internal memo Oracle.

According to that note, Oracle wants to focus all their effort into the next version of its operating system, be, Solaris 11. To do this, they will leave the OpenSolaris project, leaving to release "nightly builds" and closing the access to source code in real time.

We will No Longer
distribute source code for the entirety of the Solaris Operating
in real-time system while it is developer, on a nightly basis.
[...]
We Will Not Release Any Other binary
distributions s, such as bi-weekly or nightly builds of Solaris
binaries, or an OpenSolaris 2010.05 or later distribution.

The good part is that this will not mean not to free software development by Oracle, or the end of a free version of Solaris. Say, the politics of open source, licensed under CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License, incompatible with the GPL), will continue as before, and will continue to contribute to other free software projects like GNOME, Perl or Apache.

 

As for the free version, Oracle Express intended to replace Solaris 11 OpenSolaris systems, with a free license and optional support. The idea is that eventually these systems migrate to Solaris 11, which itself will be subject to charges.

 

This decision Oracle also has its downside. Now, all the open source Solaris will only be accessible through an internal network, which have access only approved customers. This means that, even in spite of being mostly free, will only see the code for Solaris certain people. Truly a loss as to OpenSolaris anyone could see and explore all that amount of code.

 

The reasons for this decision are focusing all their resources on Solaris 11 and keep the updates and new features appear in the source code before the start of the final version. In this way, prevent the competition has an advantage, or can throw FUDS: [...] Not Competitors to derive business permit Advantage (or FUD) from Our innovations Before we do.

 

In summary, we have a free operating system less, and a very valuable project discontinued for economic reasons. A true loss for all users, companies or individuals, OpenSolaris, and the free software community.

Posted in: OpenSolaris,Oracle,Software