“For Sun Microsystems…the word “open” is a dangerous one
these days.“
“Under its new strategy for Solaris 8, Sun in March will start
to distribute Solaris 8 either free over the Internet or for $75 on
a CD. But the company will still act as a middleman that keeps a
tight rein over the future direction of Solaris 8. Developers and
hardware vendors who plan to commercially distribute their
innovations with Solaris will still have to pay Sun royalties and
licensing fees.”
“That’s the difference between us and the more open things,”
said Ed Zander, Sun’s president and COO, making an oblique
reference to Linux.”