Computerworld reports that Sun Microsystems is planning to release more of the company’s core code–including the Java Enterprise System, the N1 Grid computing system, and more–as open source over the course of the coming year.
The goal, according to Sun, is to put its products in the hands of developers who might not otherwise have the budget to purchase the software. By making the products open source, developers will be able to download and use the products for free–and hopefully drive service and support contracts back to Sun in the future.
Such grassroots adoption has worked in the past for open source products such as MySQL and Red Hat Linux. Whether the gamble will work for Sun, however, remains to be seen.
Sun stock shares were down 3-percent at market close. More information about the products is available at Sun’s Solaris Enterprise System Web site.
