I’ve been meaning for a long time to make a video tribute to the amazing people of Sun Microsystems. It has been my honor and privilege to work with some of the finest minds in this industry (or any industry), many of whom I also got to film at Sun conferences and other events worldwide.

While it’s breaking my heart to witness the diaspora of Sun talent, I take comfort in knowing that, in new companies with new projects, these folks will cause a thousand new technologies to bloom. I look forward to seeing what everyone gets up to – including those who remain at Oracle – and hope you’ll all stay in touch and keep me posted. Though a situation like Sun may be unique and unrepeatable, I expect I’ll work with you again someday.

Most of the footage shown here I shot myself over three years, in varying conditions and with varying equipment. A few of these clips are someone else’s footage that I post-produced or edited. A few of the more engaging clips were created by the teams participating in the Go Game during the OpenSolaris Developers’ Summit held in 2008. Those aren’t my work, but – if you’ve got footage of David Korn dancing, you use it! (No, he was not a Sun employee; there are a few other “friends of” in here as well.)

The photos are mostly mine. I chose the song primarily for its bouncy and variable tempo, so if you find yourself juxtaposed with an unflattering lyric, don’t take it personally – it wasn’t intentional. Apologies to the many who were left out – I have too much material for one three-minute song! If you’re neither in the video nor in the Missing list below, let me know in the comments and I’ll add you.

Dec 28, 2010 – Have started updating the lists below with “where are they now” information – feel free to add comments if you know something I don’t! (And can add people who aren’t on these lists.)

Starring

Missing

People I have actually filmed but could not lay hands on the footage, or there just wasn’t room for it (this list is destined to grow). Some of these videos are were for a time available on blogs.sun.com/video, others were lost in the move to Oracle (not by me!). A lot of the video I shot for Sun/Oracle (and more) is on my YouTube channel.

• Aaron Dailey- Oracle
• John Forte- Oracle
• Jim Dunham
• Spencer Shepler
• Robert Thurlow- Oracle
• Mark Carlson- Oracle
• …and a bunch of others at SNIA SDC 2007. And 2008.
• Stephen S. Teppler Esq.
• Glynn Foster- Oracle
• the NWAM team- Oracle
• Peter Karlsson- Oracle
• Philip Torchinsky- Oracle
• Bill Nesheim- Oracle
• …and several others at Tech Days Hyderabad
• Charles Baker- Oracle
• Clay Baenziger- Oracle
• Arnaud Lacour – ?
• …and others at various editions of FROSUG
• James McPherson- Oracle
• Max Bruning – Joyent
• Sherry Moore- Oracle
• Gavin Maltby
• …and others at the Kernel Conference Australia 2009

For more nostalgia, see Jim Grisanzio’s beautiful album of OpenSolaris community photos (yes, I’m in there, too).