Erik Trimble answered this: "With the various Linux projects, Oracle was pretty much required to share back, so they played nicely. With Solaris, the mindset seems to be that "We own this, so let's make fat bank on a cool technology, and not let others steal our business"." http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/opensolaris-discuss/20...

The whole post is extremely interesting BTW, and spot on. I know many a Solaris sysadmin, managing sometimes ancient machines (up to 10 years old or more) that were more than pissed of by the latest support changes. Be sure they (and many others) won't buy Sun/Solaris anymore if they can, and usually, they can.

It really isn't. They liked Linux because they could sell their database on white box hardware and not pay Microsoft (more money for Oracle less for a competitor). This move is designed to bring Solaris in line with their other enterprise software products. They have an OS and Server combination that can help them make more money.

Their Java move with Google is simple. IBM paid for Java, Google didn't. Oracle wants the cash.