Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Barton George Quits Sun After 13 Years

Sun Microsystem has lost their anchor in their hope for making their open source software included in popular Linux distros.

Barton George has quit Sun after 13 years, hard on the heels of having helped secure the inclusion of an open-source friendly version of Sun's Java Development Kit (JDK) - OpenJDK - with major GNU/Linux distros.

The major weapon of Sun was shipping open source friendly versions of Java and Sun's middleware with Linux. This was their strategy from the past few years. The company wants Java and its middleware to piggyback with Linux, to support the market, and ultimately to be able to charge for services related to its software down the line.

Barton was the group manager for Sun's GNU/Linux strategy. He liaised with individuals on the distros and coordinated Sun’s internal engineering work packaging the company’s NetBeans, Glassfish, and JavaDB in addition to OpenJDK with distros.

George, who set up Sun's manufacturing operations in Brazil soon after joining, has left the company to become senior director of marketing at business-process management specialist Lombardi Software.

George told The Reg he liked Lombardi's smaller company culture and the fact it's based in the town where he lives, Austin, Texas. His departure comes, though, as Sun lays off between 1,500 and 2,500 employees.

Sun told us vice president of developer and community marketing - and Debian founder - Ian Murdock is taking over the relationships George managed. A Sun spokeswoman described Sun's relationships with the Linux community as "a major priority".

Source: Register, London, England, UK

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