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Sun actually made x86 Solaris 10 free and it ran well on commodity hardware. When Oracle bought them, they pulled the rug and demanded $1K per CPU per year for

Sun actually made x86 Solaris 10 free and it ran well on commodity hardware. When Oracle bought them, they pulled the rug and demanded $1K per CPU per year for the privilege if it was non-Sun/Oracle hardware.

hunta2097 5y ago
I see this as a huge mistake (quelle surprise, this is Oracle after all). If they had just copied the RedHat model they might have been onto a winner. Free unstable, paid stable.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  They already have Oracle Linux for that.
  - floren 5y ago
    I'm drinking coffee out of an Oracle Linux mug from SCaLE 9x, which would have been 2011... note how Oracle Linux has absolutely taken over the world since then :)
- hapless 5y ago
  Sun tried every combination of free and paid and none of them made inroads in x86. Yes, that includes the Red Hat model (remember OpenSolaris?)
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    It lasted for a very short time. OTOH, OpenIndiana is still reasonable if you want a Solaris.
    - hapless 5y ago
      They spent twenty years experimenting with different approaches to marketing Solaris x86. It was not a lack of persistence
azinman2 5y ago
Perhaps free as in money but not in source. All the big boys who deployed it absolutely wanted the source to customize in house. Also too little too late.