| Weblog: | Opening the potential of OpenOffice.org | |
| Subject: | Does Sun want linux to succeed? | |
| Date: | 2005-09-18 22:23:47 | |
| From: | jeremy1234 | |
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I would question whether Sun even wants linux to succeed. I bet they do want StarOffice to succeed. I would think that because of that, they want the development of OpenOffice to go smoothly. I wonder about their intentions around linux, however. They recently opened up Solaris 10 to get the mindshare of developers out there and have been competing with Red Hat.<br/> It just makes me wonder really. If something is critical to the success of linux, something they don't necessarily have an interest in at best and something they want to fail at worst (especially with the suspicious Microsoft deal), then why would they go out of their way to make the development cycle fit with Linux's priorities? |
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Does Sun want linux to succeed?
2005-09-19 00:15:56 hritcu [View]
| Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1. |
Sun is a company, and companies are in this for the money, not because they love open source. What else are you expecting Sun to do for open source (because they really did a lot already), and what would they have to gain out of it? Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, Sun needs some proof that open sourcing actually benefits them, before doing something we all want, like open sourcing Java? What better proof could they expect other than having people help them by contributing to the development of projects like OpenOffice?
Now, returning to your Linux question, why would Sun want Linux to succeed, when they already have a viable recently open sourced operating system like OpenSolaris? The answer is pretty simple, I think: because Microsoft's world domination hurts them tremendously. Maybe they cannot fight Microsoft in the open any more without the risk of getting totally crushed, because now they are small, compared to what they were several years ago at least. But they will surely try to support any alternative to Microsoft's products, Linux included. That is why they bought StarOffice in the first place, isn't it?