Re: [OT] Is Sun dead?

Hi,

Sure no one can un-open source a project, but they can width draw  the
financial support including marketing and development support which will
deeply impact the project.

I mentioned in my blog that IBM will probably bundle all open source
projects under one single mega package of open source solution and
charge the customer for services and supports. All projects that Sun
pushes are highly advanced, well received(big community), and high
performance products which IBM or ... can hardly ignore them.

But a coin has two sides, one is what mentioned above and the other one
is the nightmare which I hope never even close to realization.

Best,

Masoud.




software visualization wrote:
> Hi Kalali,
> 
> I have to disagree a little with you only in regards to the future of NB and
> other of Sun's Open Source offerings. The way I see it, because they are
> open sourced they cannot be un-open sourced by IBM. That's what an Open
> Source license does- it stops people who would want to kill the project from
> being able to do so.
> 
> Given that as a background, I don't have the break down regarding the number
> of people who work on NB who are paid by Sun vs the number of people who are
> funded by other means. Clearly NB has a substantial website that someone
> pays to have people work on and someone pays the ISP bill for all those
> downloads. But there are a  LOT of companies who use NB and the platform. If
> IBM screws with the community, then we're legally entitled to fork NB and
> continue development and technically and probably financially capable of
> continuing the online community.
> 
> Do you know what the break down of developers paid by Sun vs the number of
> developers who aren't is? I don't have any kind of visibility to that
> information.
> 
> What do you think? Sure some good projects go begging on Apache's site, but
> I don't se that happening here at all.
> 
> regards.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Masoud Kalali <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> epdv wrote:
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>> I've got to read this:
>>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123735124997967063.html ("IBM in Talks
>>> to Buy Sun in Bid to Add To Web Heft"). So, will Sun be part of IBM?
>>> Will it probably no more exist? If IBM will aquire Sun - will NetBeans
>>> engagement be terminated?
>>>
>>> Kind regards
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>>
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>> If the take over happens and IBM buys Sun:
>>
>> Sun as Sun for its customers will live through as IBM is looking to take
>> over Sun's customer base and provide them with support and charge them
>> with big $$$ which probably Sun is/was unable to do.
>>
>> No one knows what will happen to NetBeans and rest of Open Source
>> projects which are sponsored by Sun Microsystems.
>>
>> Best prediction is that IBM keep most Open Source product and push them
>> as a well integrated, high performance open source bundle for its
>> customer and charge them $$$$ for service and support.
>>
>> Worst prediction is that most of these projects end up orphan and die in
>> Apache incubator or somewhere else.
>>
>> I blogged about this at
>> http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kalali/archive/2009/03/ibm_in_talks_to.html
>>
>> Masoud.
>>
>> --
>> Masoud Kalali
>> Author of GlassFish in Action
>> http://www.manning.com/kalali/
>>
>> Software Engineer and Developer
>> http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kalali/
>>
>> Netbeans Community and Dream Team Member:
>> http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NetBeansDreamTeam
>>
> 


-- 
Masoud Kalali
Author of GlassFish in Action
http://www.manning.com/kalali/

Software Engineer and Developer
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kalali/

Netbeans Community and Dream Team Member:
http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NetBeansDreamTeam