The Open Source Advantage
Open source software is innovative and comes without the risk of vendor lock-ins. Developers can try out several products before settling on the one that suits the application the best, all without any front end costs; and they can usually change products later on if they become dissatisfied. Even where commercial suppliers act as intermediaries to the open source community, or other support options are available, the costs of a finished open source solution are typically lower than a proprietary one.
Other advantages of open source for enterprise IT groups stem from its development in a community effort that fosters interoperability, embraces the most innovative technology for every type of solution, and allows code to be modified to suit the exact needs of every project, all at a lower cost than proprietary systems.
Sun has played a key role in moving these open source systems and products into mainstream computing. Sun's open source program has included the Solaris operating system, the popular Java programming language with projects such as GlassFish, the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, TCP/IP, the NetBeans development suite, the recently acquired MySQL database, and even the code for the open SPARC microprocessors. Sun's open philosophy has been extended to hardware products as well, including the open approach to processors in servers and workstations, and the Open Archive solutions in the storage arena.
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz was recently recognized by eWeek as the leading corporate representative of the open source community, someone that powerful business people listen to very carefully. For example, in a recent blog entry about MySQL he said, "The overall message is simple: we're bringing our largest customers the innovation and performance...of putting MySQL into global, mission critical deployment."
He could have made the same claim about almost any open source product because they are becoming more widely adopted at every size organization by the day. Jonathan also writes in his blog that European financial institutions are adopting Open Solaris, and Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, says in his blog that many government institutions, including the U.S. National Security Agency, have adopted open source products as a way of maintaining better software control, and even asserts that it helps them maintain their sovereignty.
Sun's approach to open source software includes the classic one of freely distributing the products and code for them, and the Sun brand on the software is itself assurance of the quality of the products, making them suitable for mainstream applications. In addition, open source users can also go to the next step and purchase support packages that bring Sun's world-class service organization into the relationship to stand behind everything about the products, from installation to everyday support.
What follows is a sampling of Sun's open source initiatives, designed to give you a flavor of what open source products are available to use, and what open source communities are available for you to join.
Sun and MySQL — Why it Matters, What it Means
Sun's recent acquisition of MySQL AB adds a crucial piece to the company's long-term vision of open source development. MySQL is the world's most popular open source database, and Sun has long been active in its community, contributing code and helping the database perform extremely efficiently on Sun hardware.
Sun and MySQL executives talk about the combination of the companies.
MySQL is so popular because it's an excellent database that is fast, reliable, and easy to deploy. From startups to Fortune 500 firms, companies of all sizes are putting it to work on e-commerce, online transaction processing, data warehousing, and other applications. And now enterprise users can add Sun's world-class services and support organization to MySQL's powerful code and active community. That's an open database platform that's impossible to beat in any price-performance contest.
Take a tour of MySQL, and see why it's the world's most popular open source database.
Community Involvement — The Big Picture
Sun employees contribute to dozens of open source projects throughout the technology community. Click on the links below to learn more.
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Open Source @ Sun — The Way We Do Business
Sun is deeply influenced by Free and Open Source innovation. During the last several years, Sun has contributed more lines of code to the open source community than any other organization. Here are just a few of the highlights of Sun's participation:
Solaris OS and OpenSolaris
Sun has open sourced millions of lines of Solaris source code under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) including code for key innovations such as Dynamic Tracing (Dtrace), Containers, Predictive Self Healing, and ZFS. Today the OpenSolaris community is a thriving group of more than 75,000 members working on scores of projects.
SPARC Processors and OpenSPARC
OpenSPARC is an open source project based on the 64-bit, multithreaded UltraSPARC T1 and T2 processors. Making silicon will never be free, but Sun believes it's time to open the process, and enable more people to build silicon on a proven technology.
Java Technology
With billions of Java-enabled devices, open source Java is truly everywhere. By making Java technology freely available under the GNU General Public License GPL, Sun has opened up even more development opportunities for the next wave of connected applications. There are three key open Java communities, and you can visit each to learn more, start participating, and download code.
- OpenJDK, the community around Sun's implementation of Java Platform, Standard Edition
- Mobile & Embedded, the community around Sun's implementation of Java Platform, Micro Edition
- GlassFish, the community around Sun's implementation of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Sun also makes the NetBeans Integrated Ddevelopment Environment (IDE) and developer tools freely available. The latest release of NetBeans (download it here) includes a completely rewritten editor infrastructure, a wide range of open source scripting technologies, support for additional languages, new productivity features, and a simplified installation process.
Customers Rely on Sun for Open Source-Related Deployments
Moodlerooms
Moodlerooms provides services and support to universities, colleges, schools, businesses, and other organizations that use Moodle, the most popular open source learning management system with more than 14 millions users. Moodlerooms uses Solaris to keep operational costs low while maintaining high performance and stability.
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OmniTI
OmniTI delivers web application design, development, and consulting. The company chose Solaris and OpenSolaris for their infrastructure, primarily because of the power and features that ZFS and Dtrace offer.
Learn more about OmniTI's deployment.
National Security Agency
Sun and the National Security Agency (NSA) are working together with the OpenSolaris community to enhance existing OpenSolaris security mechanisms, including an additional form of mandatory access control (MAC), based on the Flux Advanced Security Kernel (Flask) architecture.
Read the news on Sun and the NSA
What Simon Says — Sun's Open Source Guru Simon Phipps
The integration of open source development with corporate deployment has created a new landscape for IT. There is no one better able to navigate that terrain than Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer.
Phipps understands the long-term implications of open source development and what it means for business, striking a balance between the visionary and the practical, and the open and the proprietary. Phipps writes regularly at Sunmink, his Sun.com blog. Here's what's been on his mind lately:
The procurement-driven market, where software selection is a matter of faith, is ending. In its place, an adoption-led approach arises, in which payment is made at the time of deployment, rather than the time of selection.
"In an adoption-led market, developers select from available free software and try the software that fits best in their proposed application. They develop prototypes, switch packages as they find benefits and problems, and finally create a deployable solution to their business problem. At that final point
they seek out vendors to provide support, services (like defect resolution), and more. Adoption-led users are not all customers; they only become so when they find a vendor with value to offer."
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