In what it claims is a landmark shift in strategy, Sun Microsystems has announced plans to make its entire software portfolio free in what the company sees as a move to win a battle to create the software platform of choice for the next-generation of the internet.

According to Sun, it has committed to open sourcing its entire software portfolio using industry-standard open source licensing models to allow customers to have easy and broad access to all of its source code.

Sun is making the Java Enterprise System, Sun N1(TM) Management software, and Sun developer tools available at no cost for both development and deployment and has committed to open source the software. In addition, Sun will integrate the development software along with the Solaris OS into its infractructure software platform, Solaris Enterprise System.

Sun believes the moves have created a no-cost and open alternative to the Microsoft Windows environment, with Solaris Enterprise System having all of the benefits of an integrated offering while still enabling customers the flexibility to deploy the specific components they need into alternative operating systems, such as Linux.

"With more than 3.4 million Solaris licenses and nearly one million Java Enterprise System subscribers, customers and developers around the world have asked us to take the next logical step - combining the world's fastest growing open source operating system with the world's most complete and ready to deploy infrastructure software platform," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun. "100% of our customers are deploying web infrastructures and asking for relief from onerous licenses and system integration activity. With our announced intent to open source the entirety of our software offerings, every single developer across the world now has access to the most sophisticated platform available for web 1.0, 2.0 and beyond."

Included at no cost in the new Solaris Enterprise System are:

Open sourced Solaris 10, with the recently announced PostgreSQL database; the Sun Java Enterprise System infrastructure software platform, including the Sun Java Identity Management Suite, Sun Java Integration Suite, Sun Java Communications Suite, Sun Java Application Platform Suite, Sun Java Availability Suite and Sun Java Web Infrastructure Suites; the N1 Management Software including the Sun N1 System Manager, the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, the Sun N1 Grid Engine;
all tools for C, C++ and Java development, including Sun Studio 11, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 and Sun Java Studio Creator;
SunRay ultra-thin client software; and Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.
 
Sun has also announced the roll out of a number of new, complementary services from early developer training and education to remote and managed services to automate processes that are currently manually accomplished. Sun's new Customer Network Services will provide administrators and developers with automated support for operations management, including patches, upgrades, updates and warranty.