Good news for Open-Source and Sun employees [LWN.net]

Good news for Open-Source and Sun employees

Posted Apr 21, 2009 1:31 UTC (Tue) by shieldsd (subscriber, #20198)
Parent article: Oracle: SELECT * FROM Sun

I see this as good news both for Sun's current employees and open-source in general.

Sun's key open-source related assets are Java, Solaris, MySQL and Open Office. Oracle will get to pick and choose where to invest.

Open Office has the least strategic interest, so Oracle's best move would be to completely open it up and let the community and other vendors take it over. This would buy Oracle some good will it could cash in during its move with the other asserts.

thanks,dave

(Log in to post comments)

Good news for Open-Source and Sun employees

Posted Apr 21, 2009 19:30 UTC (Tue) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

> Sun's key open-source related assets are Java, Solaris, MySQL and Open
Office.

And VirtualBox I would guess: http://www.virtualbox.org/

From the article you referenced:
> In its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle sees a technology company
that is a software gem, skillful in computer design and ripe for
cost-cutting.
...
industry analysts estimated that Oracle’s cost savings from Sun operations
suggest job cuts of up to 10,000 workers from Sun’s payroll of more than
30,000.

My guess: Oracle sells OpenOffice to IBM. Hmm... or maybe MicroSoft would
be willing to pay more?

Good news for Open-Source and Sun employees

Posted Apr 21, 2009 20:37 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

My guess: Oracle sells OpenOffice to IBM.

This could actually happen... Of course, IBM has devoted lots of resources to Lotus Symphony; perhaps Symphony and OOo could combine forces to take on Microsoft Office...

Hmm... or maybe MicroSoft would be willing to pay more?

This is a near-impossibility. Hell would freeze over sooner. I just can't see MS buying a competitive product to their cash-cow office suite. If they did so it'd be to simply extinguish OOo (bypassing the extend and embrace phases). OOo would fork faster than a Windows box blue-screening.

Good news for Open-Source and Sun employees

Posted Apr 23, 2009 11:31 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (✭ supporter ✭, #5246) [Link]

My guess: Oracle sells OpenOffice to IBM. Hmm... or maybe MicroSoft would be willing to pay more?

And that'd pass antitrust muster how? (Referring to the Microsoft part.)