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Date:      Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:40:02 -0500 (EST)
From:      John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
To:        chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Solaris source code
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.970718163808.23403N-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>

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Is sun feeling the pinch of linux and *BSD?

-john

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1997 JUL 18 (NB) -- By Sami  
Menefee. Colleges and universities can now get Sun Microsystems' 
[NASDAQ:SUNW] source code for its Solaris 
operating system "virtually free of charge." Buy something else 
from Sun and they'll throw in the Solaris source code completely 
for free, said Sun this morning. 

The firm said in a release that it aims to give university  
researchers and students hands-on experience with coding in Sun's 
proprietary version of the Unix operating system. A sun spokesperson 
said the new educational program would benefit everyone, not least 
of all Sun itself, but Sun would not reply to questions about how 
the move might fit with other recently announced market strategies 
being put in place by the giant network-oriented corporation. (See 
Sun Embraces PCI Standard," Newsbytes, July 16, 1997.) 

Sun said that to enhance its drive to encourage the spread of  
Solaris throughout higher learning, the firm will also supply a 
Solaris Driver Developers Kit as part of the package. The kit is 
intended to help customers develop programs to interface the system 
to special input/output devices like lab equipment and hardware 
controllers. 

About the new push, Barbara Gordon, Sun's vice president for  
academic and research computing, commented that the move would be 
"good for everyone." 

She added in a statement: "It allows students, faculty and  
researchers access and builds up greater expertise and knowledge 
across the entire community. Over the years, much invaluable Unix 
research has come out of universities, and this program will extend 
that proud heritage." 

Sun said the push will include a support and update program through  
which institutions of higher learning can share ideas with Sun for 
enhancing the system. This will benefit Sun by leading to stronger 
versions of Solaris, while researchers and students will see their 
ideas and innovations incorporated into future versions of the 
operating system and students will emerge from school with sharpened 
skills. 

Solaris is a highly scalable version of Unix, working across Sun's  
entire line of workstations and servers. In its university program, 
Sun will bundle the source code for both Solaris SPARC systems and 
Intel-based systems, said the firm. Sun said it hopes universities 
will decide to port Solaris to other platforms as well, and 
specifically mentioned Apple and Acorn. 

Sun will assign a Solaris code specialist to work closely from Sun  
headquarter with universities that take advantage of the program, 
said the firm. The aim will be to make sure code is shared between 
various research projects, and to make sure the firm will not miss 
potential code enhancements for future commercial versions. 

Sun said the program will further its goal to make true its well  
known motto, "The Network Is The computer." Since 1982, when Sun 
was formed, more than 12,000 applications have been developed for 
the Sun Solaris version of the Unix operating system first developed 
by AT&T in the 1960s, Sun reports. 





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