Sun Mulls Deeper Open-Source Dive

(page 3 of 3)

At the other end of the spectrum are big companies like FedEx (FDX), eBay (EBAY), Exxon Mobil (XOM), and Verizon (VZ) that are bulking up on computing to run programs that can route trucks and planes, track packages, and run networks, Schwartz said in March. The same can't be said for a wide swath of Corporate America, which is slowing IT spending on systems that manage payrolls, inventories, and general ledgers, as increases in processing power outpace business growth. "You don't want to hang out too long in that part of the marketplace," Schwartz said. "We want to be on the right side of that split."

Yet releasing a GPL version of Solaris could obviate some of the technologies that make Solaris most appealing. The operating system includes powerful software like DTrace, which can analyze why a program's running slowly, and ZFS, a file system that heaps performance gains on a Web site or program, that nothing in the Linux world can touch. Under the GPL, "those would very quickly show up inside Linux," says Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, which distributes a version of Linux that runs on Sun's Niagara chips. "Then it's legal to take code out of Solaris and put it into Linux."

Linux Community in Flux

The trade-off may be unavoidable, says Jonathan Eunice, founder and principal IT adviser at industry consultancy Illuminata. "That's what open sourcing is all about. You have to give up something to get community involvement," he says.

On the other hand, OpenSolaris' Common Development & Distribution License has been criticized since the rights to any changes users make to Solaris' code revert to Sun (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/14/06, "Sun's Surprising Openness"). Further muddying the waters is the chaotic state of affairs at the GPL license administrator, the Free Software Foundation, which is struggling to write a new version of the license and has taken fire from Torvalds for threatening the intellectual property of companies that might use it. On Apr. 25, Eben Moglen, who ran the foundation's legal affairs, resigned.

Perhaps most important, not everyone at Sun thinks GPL Solaris is the right way to go. "It's way premature to be thinking about this," says Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer. The license was "perfect for Java," since its requirement that users republish their modifications to Java's source code prevents proprietary versions (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/5/06, "Sun: Brew-It-Yourself Java?"). But Solaris, an outgrowth of the Berkeley Software Distribution version of Unix that Sun co-founder Bill Joy wrote in the '70s, comes from a different tradition. More than 30,000 programmers have worked on OpenSolaris projects, and things won't change without their say-so, Phipps says. "They're pretty skeptical about using the GPL," he says, "no matter how enthusiastic Jonathan is."

New Management Team

Other executives are angling to put their stamp on Sun's open-source efforts too. In May, 2006, the company rehired veteran Rich Green as executive vice-president of software, following the departure of software chief John Loiacono to Adobe Systems (ADBE). "Rich is really about driving innovation and change," says Brewin. Loiacono, he says, "comes from a different background." Then there's Ian Murdock, the creator of the Debian version of Linux, whom Sun hired on Mar. 19 as chief operating platforms officer to help attract Linux developers to Solaris. His job, says Phipps, is to steer the future course of Solaris. Exactly how that might unfold isn't clear. "Whenever we ask him, he says, 'Well, I'm still looking. Ask me in a few weeks.'"

The irony, of course, is that if Sun had done all this a decade ago, it might have avoided many of its current problems, perhaps even positioned Solaris where Linux is today. Some gadflies at Sun were advocating for open-sourcing Solaris in the '90s, but it never got done. "The debate at Sun hasn't been about whether we should do it or not, it's been about how we should do it," says Phipps. "Those are the questions that bog Sun down." Maybe settling the debate will help get the growth engine revved back up.

Ricadela is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in Silicon Valley.