Sun has released StarOffice 8.

It looks like Sun Trunking is now a free download for Solaris 10. Previously it was an extra-cost add-on to the Solaris OE.

Sun has released five new servers powered by the new UltraSPARC-IV+ processor. The new machines are the V490, V890, E2900, E4900, and E6900.

The new US-IV+ starts at 1.5Ghz, with 2M on-chip L2 cache and 32M off-chip L3 cache. The US-IV+ can be mix-and-matched with US-III and US-IV processors within a single system.

In addition to flying a banner over Dell’s headquarters (picture from here), Sun has even had a few ads for the new Galaxy servers rejected for publication in the Wall Street Journal.

I’ve written recently about financial problems the Blastwave project (run by Dennis Clarke) has experienced.

I’m glad to share the news that Genesi has now become a primary sponsor for the Blastwave (software packages) and Blastware (OpenSolaris/PPC) projects.

In addition to providing financial support for the Blastwave and Blastware, Genesi has provided numerous Open Desktop Workstation PowerPC-based development systems to Blastware project developers at no cost. $50 of the cost of each Blastware ODW sold will be donated to the Blastwave and Blastware projects.

Sun has three new AMD Opteron-based servers today, the Sun Fire X2100, X4100, and X4200.

The 1U single-CPU X2100 is priced from $795 (diskless node configuration) to $2295 (dual-core CPU, 2G RAM), and features the Opteron 100-series processor.
The 1U dual-CPU-capable X4100 is priced from $2195 (single CPU, 1G RAM, diskless) to $7395 (Dual dual-core CPUs, 4G RAM, dual SAS disk) and features Opteron 200-series processors.
The 2U dual-CPU-capable X4200 is priced from $2595 (single CPU, 1G RAM, diskless) to $7795 (Dual dual-core CPUs, 4G RAM, dual SAS disk) and features Opteron 200-series processors.

All three models are capable of running Solaris, Linux, or Windows – supported by Sun.

The X4100 and X4200 feature Sun’s ILOM (Integrated Lights-Out Manager), allowing remote system management, including full KVM functionality with video and media redirection or access via CLI, IMPI, and SNMP. ILOM is an available option on the X2100.

According to this FAQ on OpenOffice.org, Sun is getting rid of the Sun Industry Standard Source License (SISSL) and moving the OpenOffice codebase entirely to the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

According to this NEWS.COM article, Sun’s first in-house-designed (by SPARCstation designer and Sun cofounder Andy Bechtolsheim) AMD Opteron-based machines will be announced on September 12th. The first machines released will be the Sun Fire X4100 and X4200, both with two dual-core Opteron CPUs and either two or four hard drives.

The Blastwave project desperately needs your help. According to Dennis Clarke, the project creator and maintainer:

I need to ask the Blastwave and OpenSolaris communities for your help. Despite my best efforts at gathering corporate sponsorship, Blastwave is once again in a financial crisis. We are due to be evicted from the datacenter in three days, and there is little that I can do personally to stop this.

I have called every major computer company. When I call and ask about corporate sponsorship for an open source project I generally get a lukewarm response. Frankly, no one is interested in putting their corporate logo on this site. I have sold everything of value to keep this project and open build environment going, and I have nothing left to give. There is simply no long term support plan and no revenue model.

This is a dire situation. There have been millions of confirmed software packages created and delivered by Blastwave. Just one US mirror site delivered 3.2 million confirmed software packages in the last ten months alone — the true scope is even greater, encompassing a total of 30 mirror sites in the USA, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Blastwave needs two things of the community. First, we need money. Please visit

http://www.blastwave.org/sponsors/donation.html

and make a donation to help keep the data center running. Also, we need to gather some estimate of the size of the Blastwave
community. Please go to

http://www.blastwave.org/survey/index.html

and let us know that you use Blastwave.

Sadly, Blastwave and Blastware have no way to survive without continual and ongoing support. Since I announced the fund raiser a few days ago there have been a few donations. Even a large donation by a long-time friend of Blastwave. Please visit the survey site and let me know if you are a member of the Solaris community. Truth is, no one knows how many we are. Please make a donation if you can.

This is Blastwave sending S.O.S … — …

Dennis Clarke, Director Blastwave.org

Blastwave is one of the nicest Solaris software package repositories out there, and it would be bad to lose this wonderful resource due to funding issues. Please help out if you can!