> Support for Solaris is costly because only small
> number of people can
> fix it, and make it available to others. OpenSolaris
> support just gives
> more bang for a buck on every front.
>
> Open VS Closed; Free(dom) VS Proprietary; Independent
> and associated VS
> Dependent on one company; Active and included VS
> Passive and isolated.
> OpenSolaris VS Solaris. Choose yourself.
>
While I think you have a point, I also think OpenSolaris is a bad example of an
open source product to make your point with. Even Nexenta would be a better
example of a properly open-source product for which you can buy support. The
OpenSolaris binary distribution is more like "Open Core", i.e. built from the
open source kernel but is still a closed binary containing some closed
components and assembled by an undisclosed build process, maybe even
incorporating some closed patches. You can get close to building 2009.06 by
building b128a, but I doubt you'd be able to replicate both the installation CD
and the IPS repository.
If you pay Oracle for support and raise a help ticket that leads to a patch, do
they send you the source of this patch, or guarantee that the patch will be
included in the open source repository (even if it involves a closed binary
component)? If Oracle decides to stop producing binary distributions of
OpenSolaris altogether to focus fully on providing paid support for closed
Solaris, what bang does that give you for the bucks you poured into OpenSolaris?
There are indeed many open-source products for which you can pay support (even
RHEL, which is sufficiently open-source to be cloned into CentOS and others),
but the other key factor to consider is the level of commitment from the
support provider and whether you are still tied to a single provider. For
OpenSolaris you can only buy support from Oracle, for as long as they can be
bothered to provide it. With many other open source products you have a choice
of independent support providers you can go to.
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