Sun's Open Source Boss Bids Farewell

In a blog post yesterday, Sun Microsystems' Chief Open Source Officer Simon Phipps announced that he has quit.

He wasn't the first Sun executive to walk out of Oracle's door and he probably won't be the last.

"Chief among those casualties was Jonathan Schwartz," reported The Register's Kelly Fiveash, "who quit his CEO job at Sun in early February, signing off with a peculiar haiku via his Twitter account."

With his parting words, Phipps listed his achievements during his 10 years at Sun, but he also noted his failures as well.

"Of course, no story with highlights like that can be without disappointments too. I’m sad that Apache did not get the TCK license they requested. I’m sad that we didn’t get the code for some of those projects permanently outside the sun firewall. I’m sad we never got to a place where co-developers become a priority for various product teams. And I’m sad that, despite the success of the open source software businesses, it still wasn’t enough to rescue Sun in the end. But overall, I am amazed and humbled to see what the open source team at Sun has achieved."

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