Sun Mulls Deeper Open-Source Dive

CEO Jonathan Schwartz is considering what may be the company's riskiest advance yet into open-source territory

by Aaron Ricadela

It has been five years since Sun Microsystems (SUNW) Chairman Scott McNealy donned a penguin suit at a San Francisco conference to demonstrate Sun's détente with Linux. Rather than dis the open-source operating system as an inferior competitor, Sun would sell it, albeit in select corners of the market.

McNealy's now off stage, having stepped down as chief executive in April, 2006, but his successor, Jonathan Schwartz, is still trying to make Linux fit. Sun's new boss is even more willing to embrace open-software development methods, letting programmers contribute to the code used in what were once some of Sun's most closely guarded products, including Java and Solaris.

By June, Sun plans to complete the release all of the source code for its widely used Java programming language under the General Public License, the same agreement that governs Linux. And Sun has spent the past two years trying to drum up interest in OpenSolaris, a version of its Unix operating system that developers can download free from Sun's Web site.

Price Is an Issue

Now, amid falling sales of its bread-and-butter servers and mounting pressure on Schwartz to cut more jobs and boost a stock price that's dropped more than 22%, to $5.26, since early February, Sun is considering its most radical open-source move yet: releasing Solaris under the love-it-or-hate-it GPL. The move could reinvigorate Sun by putting one of its crown jewels into the thick of the open-source movement—or it could diminish the worth of one of Sun's most valuable pieces of intellectual property.

Even Schwartz concedes that while customers value Solaris, they're often tempted by less expensive systems. "If you force them to buy Solaris, that works for a short time," he said at a presentation to reporters on Mar. 23. "But eventually they find a way to get rid of Solaris. It happened." Sun wants to make sure it doesn't happen again, now that the company has eked out a profit after years of losses following the dot-com meltdown and IT spending slump earlier this decade.

How Sun ventures further into the open-source waters remains under debate inside the company. More answers could come at the company's JavaOne conference in San Francisco May 8–11. The theme of this year's show: "Open Possibilities."

Regaining Credibility

Releasing Solaris under the GPL—an idea Schwartz first broached publicly in a January, 2006, blog post—could catalyze large numbers of developers to write software that runs on Sun gear. Technology in Sun's newest Sparc microprocessors, which have won rave reviews for performance, is also available under the GPL, as is most of Java.

Aligning the licensing rules for Sun's operating system, programming language, and chips could give companies new incentives to use them in tandem (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/8/06, "Sun's Big Open-Source Bet"). It could also give Sun more firepower against IBM (IBM), which makes a fortune selling software and consulting services to companies that run Linux.

And unlike the Sun-crafted license that governs OpenSolaris, a GPL version of Solaris could give Sun instant credibility in the open-source world, a mantle it lost years ago. "When Sun grew up they were the developers' platform of choice," says Fred Killeen, chief systems and technology officer at General Motors (GM), a big Sun shop. "That whole generation now is going open source. This takes them back to their roots to get that population reinvigorated."

Preserving Value

But releasing Solaris as GPL software also poses high risks for a company struggling to hang on to every shred of value in a computer industry that's rapidly shifting from specialized products to low-cost machines that run Linux and Microsoft (MSFT) Windows and feature Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chips.