Business Practices

Overview

Ethics and Governance

Open Practices

Supply Chain

Policies and Practices

Introduction Enabling Access and Participation Interoperability

At Sun, we view "Open Source" as quite possibly the best way to inspire innovation. We are pleased to be one of the largest contributors to the Open Source community, allowing millions of users to build, compete, and collaborate.

History of Community in Open Source

Breaking down the technological, social, and economic barriers that have conspired to constrain innovation and access is a challenge that Sun readily embraces. When we talk about enabling participation on the network, we are not just talking about helping people get online. We are talking about creating the technologies that allow people to access the tools they need so they can participate.

Java and OpenSolaris offer just two examples of how Sun strives to develop and support communities that inspire collaboration and innovation.

Read more about Sun's commitment to free and open source software initiatives

Java

One of the most powerful examples of how sharing and community building can change the world is found in Java technology and its developer community. Today, the Java IT community is the largest and most active on the planet. There are more than five million developers, architects, and programmers around the world, and thousands of Web sites. Java technology powers more than four billion devices — from cell phones, PDAs, and smart cards to game consoles, set-top boxes, printers, and more. And then there's the Java Community Process, an all-inclusive community of more than 1,130 members who have helped shape the direction of the Java platform.

In November, 2006, in a historic move, Sun announced the open sourcing of key Java implementations under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), the same license as GNU/Linux. With this move — delivering more than six million lines of code into open source — Sun is now the largest contributor to the open source community. Java technology's phenomenal success validates our core philosophy that sharing and building communities through inclusion and open systems makes innovation and participation possible.

OpenSolaris

The OpenSolaris project, sponsored by Sun, is a community and Web site for collaboration, conversation, sources, downloads, mailing lists, events, and developer tools. penSolaris has attracted more than 14,000 members and 29 different user groups worldwide, further demonstration of a community born out of Sun's commitment to openly share.

Read more about the OpenSolaris open source project