From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Jul 18 14:40:35 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA17966 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:40:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (fallout.campusview.indiana.edu [149.159.1.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA17947 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:40:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jfieber@localhost) by fallout.campusview.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA26864 for ; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:40:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:40:02 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Solaris source code Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 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.