Phipps to lead Sun Open Technologies Practice

Simon Phipps is taking on a new role at Sun:

"It's not an especially closely-kept secret but I've now moved from Sun's software group and taken the Chief Open Source Officer role over to a newly-formed team reporting more directly to the CEO and working on Sun's relationships with communities globally."
Simon will lead the Sun Open Technologies Practice, with particular focus on standards and open source. I must confess that I don't know how Sun dealt with this before, but open standards and open source are so tightly linked in my mind. So, it's good to see both efforts headed up by the same team.

While most of the comments on Simon's blog were congratulatory, Roy Schestowitz had the following to say:

"Why put a positive spin in intellectual monopolies at all? Is it because Sun /already/ has a portfolio, i.e. fences against competition?"
Simon responded:

"Hi Roy. That's just the way the world outside the FOSS communities speaks. My intent is to work from this new position to change that world, but one doesn't usually win by alienating them on day one :-)
Everyone else: Thanks for the warm wishes."