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this doesn't change the status of OpenSolaris.


No, not directly. But they're trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of hardware and licensing by limiting users' ability to run Solaris for free on beige boxes, and that does seem to tilt the odds in the open question of whether Oracle will continue to let OpenSolaris thrive, or whether they will marginalize it to maximize short-term profit.

I say short-term profit because, in taking this course, Oracle seems to forget that many of the part-time tinkerers and educational or small business users whom they've just priced out of Solaris will be the ones making "enterprise" purchasing decisions in the future. This revised licensing agreement ensures that such users will be more comfortable and familiar with the competition instead--Linux, BSD, even Windows (Microsoft has done a fantastic job ensuring that their software is affordable in the education and small business sectors, while simultaneously maintaining a healthy profit margin in enterprise sales).


The primary reason to run Solaris is to have access to the broad base of Solaris ISV and IHV products.

OpenSolaris will is incompatible with Solaris in many notable ways. (e.g. uses GNU for libstdc++.)

Losing free Solaris x86 means I can no longer recommend it -- not when CentOS, a 100% ABI-compatible RHEL clone, exists.




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