ITGumbo: spicing IT up

He basically stated that based on the company's history, he doesn't expect Sun to commit to open source the way they have said they already have. Does he bring forth some valid points? Of course. However, his status and importance to the open source movement aside, it's still just an opinion (his). Just as Linus' views on GPL v3 doesn't overrule the overall purpose or need for the license, neither does this imply anything overtly negative about Sun, its approach to open source software, or anything else mentioned is bad. I took the overall theme to be that Linus expects Sun to act in its best interest first and foremost which, for the record so do I, could turn out to mean quite a few things...only time will tell.

On the other hand, there is quite a bit to be gained by the open source community as a whole if OpenSolaris can emerge as a top-level open source operating system. No, it will never be Linux, but that's actually a good thing even if there are those who are calling for greater similarity to Linus' brainchild. Towards that end, I do see OpenSolaris as strong and well-positioned enough to make the leap into higher rung of relevance despite a long road ahead. Even if I'm not rooting for nor against it, here are several reasons that open source needs a successful OpenSolaris:

• Sun and Wall Street: For those who think it doesn't matter what the analysts on Wall Street think about open source, consider the fact that private equity funding doesn't grow on trees. V.C.'s invest because they are confident they can achieve a healthy ROI. The better publicly-traded companies like Sun (and Red Hat and Sourcefire) do (having declared open source a core element of their business model), the more appealing the potential for an IPO exit becomes. Granted, strong businesses tend to attract quality investment regardless of the state of the public markets, there is something to be said for having prospective exit avenues confirmed.
• There is never enough quality open source: Regardless of what both the critics of OpenSolaris and Sun may level at the two, competition is not only healthy but it is actually good for the entire open source universe. The strengthening of the OpenSolaris community does absolutely nothing to diminish the efforts of the Linux community as a whole or its individual segments. It's not like OpenSolaris is branching the source code of another popular Linux distribution, yet there seems to be an aire of rejection and criticism surrounding Sun's effort in this area.
  
• Helps prep the market for more comprehensive open source: Sun's emerging open source portfolio has the potential to further validate the trend of open source stacks (application, infrastructure, or otherwise) which is set to perpetuate in the near future.
  
• Sun can deliver a strong open source message: The bottom line is that Sun, despite having lost its market share dominance, has the ear of the enterprise world. They may not be an IBM or Microsoft but they are capable of continually evangelizing the benefits of open source to customers who haven't yet caught the wave yet. In terms of being able to do the same, I can only name Red Hat and Novell. So adding another member to that duo can only be positive.
  
• ZFS: It's my perspective that the better OpenSolaris fares as an open source offering, the more likely a round of serious conversations about enabling ZFS in Linux is to occur. At the current moment, Sun isn't going to consider doing so because they want to keep OpenSolaris as sticky as possible. However, if it gets rolling perhaps there would be reason to assume ZFS could move closer to a GPLv2 friendly existence.
  

Of course, as Linus and others have pointed out, Sun should be set for the boot camp that is open sourcing an operating system. And yes, there are some holes in Sun's approach, but there are holes in the Linux kernel community and any other open source operation. So while I can recognize those shortcomings as well as anyone else (lack of outside contribution, coherently expressed direction of open source efforts, missing driver specs, better Sun hardware compatibility) they don't invalidate the value of pursuing this path.