Leader: Is open source the right move for Sun's Solaris?

Is 'going open source' a remedy to the woes of a troubled software business? You could be forgiven for thinking it might be seen that way in certain board rooms.

CA, which today lost former CEO Sanjay Kumar completely, last month said it would open up its Ingres database on Linux.

Then Sun this week announced an upcoming open source version of its Solaris Unix flavour. Now that wasn't its only bit of news this week. Far from it. (As a timely aside, how many important bits of information are likely to slip through news rooms around the world as 30 or so updates are issued at once each quarter? Note to McNealy: might work for Detroit; might work for you; might even work for your customers. But spare a thought for the rest of us.)

Sun signed an historic server co-development and selling deal with long-time ally Fujitsu, came up with 'per citizen pricing' for some of its software, made RFID advances, updated its Java Desktop System and Java Enterprise System and plenty more besides. Believe us - we're using the press pack as a door stop.

You wouldn't be wrong in thinking software rather than hardware was at the centre of this hardware stalwart's news. And at the centre of that software is Solaris and open source.

Unlike some industry pundits who predict a long-term future for Linux and Windows and little else on the operating system front, Sun reckons Solaris will be the other survivor.

Of those that hold out some hope for that OS, analyst house Ovum this week noted it has long been asking Sun to take its lid off.

Clearly there is some hope that loosening control and widening the developer gene pool will ultimately pay dividends. It's not the most original of ideas.

However, it isn't certain how things will work out. What will be Sun's licensing model? Might the OS fragment?

And will Sun be brave enough to relinquish enough control? Some say that with Java it hasn’t been.

So lots of questions and lots of software businesses that realise the time has come for something to be changed.