Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

The Spectrum

Author:John Jensen
Posted:10/3/1999; 7:58:42 AM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:11711 (In response to 11690)
Prev/Next:11710 / 11712

I think we can talk about "spectrums" of open source, but the broader the spectrum we define, the less likely it is to interest any specific group. Sun may be right that Solaris under the Community license is a kind of open source, but people like Linus may not be terribly interested. That is the natural effect of a broad definition.

It is interesting to consider what happened with "free Solaris". The Solaris OS has been free for non-commercial use for a little over nine months. In those nine months Sun has shipped 100,000 copies. Those are solid numbers, and I'm sure a lot of people did benefit from free Solaris, but those numbers didn't intude on the Linux story. There was a choice between "free" Solaris and "free" Linux, and people chose what suited them.

So now we have a choice between "open" Solaris and "open" Linux. That's grand, and I'm sure open Solaris will benefit a lot of people, but I don't see the numbers intruding on the Linux story.

John




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