$400M

[censored]

Isn't it sad, how this has all transpired? I seem to remember reading someplace, that Sun had spent something like $400M on Solaris x86. They thought, at one point, that they would displace the desktop titans in the arena.

I installed the originally licensed Solaris 10 when it first came out. I liked it, but at the same time I realized that it wasn't going to significantly move mind share for the desktop. People are too much drones, and those big slabs of skin hanging on their faces act as blinders ... making them Inherently incapable of escaping monopoly. But I digress...

I see the Ilumos project, and a couple other offshoots, trying to make some constructive use of $400M worth of technology. Since Sun wasn't the government, that expense shouldn't be wasted. I hope Oracle is making good use of it.

Now, my question: The ilumos project makes mention of "closed source pieces" - that are necessary for compilation. Are these legally available anywhere? If not, then ... sheeshhh ... what a waste!

I had the Sun Developer Studio that originally shipped with Solaris 10, but somehow managed to trash the CDs. I suppose the closed source bits were on them. Oh well.