Infoworld is reporting that Sun"s enterprise operating system, Solaris 10, is no longer free and is now a 90 day trial. The changed licensing agreement now states the following: "Please remember, your right to use Solaris acquired as a download is limited to a trial of 90 days, unless you acquire a service contract for the downloaded Software."
Prior to their acquisition by Oracle, Sun provided Solaris free (but without support) for both personal and commercial use. That old license only required a free email registration through Sun:
"In order to use the Solaris 10 Operating System for perpetual commercial use, each system running the Solaris 10 OS must have an entitlement to do so. The Entitlement Document is delivered to you either with a new Sun system, from Sun Services as part of your service agreement, or via e-mail when you register your systems through the Sun Download Center."
Ars notes though that OpenSolaris is not affected by this new license and is still free under the open Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL for short). But questions are still being raised about the future of OpenSolaris, as the latest scheduled release for March, 2010.03, is still not in users hands as end of the month approaches. (It was initially targeted for a February release as 2010.02)
Oracle has stated that they will continue to support OpenSolaris:
"Oracle will continue to make OpenSolaris available as open source, and Oracle will continue to actively support and participate in the community. Oracle is investing more in Solaris than Sun did prior to the acquisition, and will continue to contribute technologies to OpenSolaris, as Oracle already does for many other open source projects. Oracle will also continue to deliver OpenSolaris releases, including the upcoming OpenSolaris 2010.03 release."