Now that Oracle owns Sun, what will happen to all of the open-source software under Sun? These projects include MySQL, OpenSolaris, and OpenOffice. One thing is for certain, that former Sun employees will be laid off, but the number is not know. The best guesses put the number at around 1000 and likely most will be from the open-source divisions. Two former products have been cut, Project Wonderland and Project Kenai.
Overall, OpenOffice will be the most likely to survive as Oracle doesn’t have any competing products. MySQL is a toss-up because Oracle makes their own database software, but it is widely used. OpenSolaris will likely be cut from getting resources. It will be up to the community to possibly take over the code.
Full Article: Computer World
BRUSSELS: The European Union competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, took a swipe at Microsoft on Tuesday by recommending that businesses and governments use software based on internationally accepted standards.
Kroes has fought bitterly with Microsoft during the past four years, accusing the U.S. company of defying her orders and fining it nearly €1.7 billion, or $2.7 billion, for violating European competition rules. She did not mention Microsoft by name Tuesday, but encouraged computer users to avoid formats that, like many Microsoft products, are based on proprietary standards.
“I know a smart business decision when I see one – choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed,” Kroes told a conference in Brussels hosted by OpenForum Europe, an industry body whose members include Microsoft rivals like IBM and Sun Microsystems.
Open standards allow software companies to develop products that work seamlessly together with those of other companies, according to OpenForum Europe. The open-source movement, which is different, advocates freely sharing the underlying code used for software, the group said.
Full Article: International Herald Tribune
Interesting stance by the European Union. The article makes few relevent arguements for supporting its stance other than it is defending companies in the EU. We shall see how this works out for them and if Microsoft makes any changes to become a more open platform. It is also interesting they did not take jabs at Apple since they are also extremely closed when it comes to programming. Perhaps they market share is not large enough and the EU wants to make an example of a industry leader.