No news... good news? Solaris 10 licensing terms have changed

Long time no blog. Partly because I enjoyed a(n almost) relaxing summer. Partly because I was standing by, sad and astonished, at what was happening to Solaris and OpenSolaris in the final stages of the Oracle and Sun Microsystems merger.

There's no need for me to blog about the well known changes that OpenSolaris and its communities underwent in the last months. I feel a little bit of sadness but things haven't changed so dramatically. The supported Sun's OpenSolaris distribution has been obliterated in favor of... yet another Solaris Express. Back to the old days. Ben Rockwood has written a good piece in his blog in which he analyses the leaked Oracle memo and makes some insightful considerations. I agree with his analysis.

Until Solaris 11 Express sees the light, I was thinking about upgrading my workstations to Solaris 10 09/10, which was released yesterday. As you'll notice when accepting the OTN license, Solaris 10 licensing terms have changed.

Except for any included software package or file that is licensed to you by Oracle under different license terms, we grant you a perpetual (unless terminated as provided in this agreement), nonexclusive, nontransferable, limited License to use the Programs only for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping and demonstrating your applications, and not for any other purpose.

After so many fears and speculations, that's good news.