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Sometimes the best decisions become clear only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. So I'm sure Scott McNealy, the most cocksure tech CEO I ever met, must know he made the right move getting out of the way at Sun Microsystems.

Since turning over the reins to Jonathan Schwartz in April 2006, Sun has picked itself off the floor, staging one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent Silicon Valley history. Come on now, fess up: how many of you believed Sun had a rendezvous with irrelevance? OK, I'll be first to raise my hand. After the dot-com bubble burst, Sun felt the pain more than most. In the years since, the company was in a neck-and-neck race to the bottom with Borland Software, another former high-flier that has since fizzled out.

Truth be told, I thought Schwartz talked a good game with the media, but I doubted he had the right stuff to revive the company. He reminded me more of one of those smug yuppy jerks who once populated the senior management ranks at Microsoft (pre-antitrust trial, before all the smack-down which later ensued.) Or as McNealy was wont to say on other occasions, Schwartz came across as "all hat and no cattle." Whenever he met with CNET editors, for example, Schwartz came across as obviously bright, but so obnoxiously in love with the sound of his own voice that I couldn't wait for the meeting to end. He was convinced you were flat wrong and that should be the end of the discussion. Couldn't we see he was right?

Well, four consecutive quarters of profit later, who am I to argue with the track record? No doubt, a fuller assessment must acknowledge that many of the seeds of Sun's recovery were planted during McNealy's time. Even as Sun's world appeared to be collapsing around him, McNealy kept investing in R&D projects. That later paid off in the coin of success with things like Sun's Galaxy and blade servers. Also, McNealy helped bring back one of the industry's legendary designers at a critical moment when Andy Bechtolsheim rejoined Sun in 2004.

Ever since, Schwartz has done a splendid job moving Sun along the right paths. He's been eloquent about the need to step beyond Sun's own hardware and software. And his vocal of open-source software has been especially timely.

I was impressed with today's announcement that Sun is buying MySQL. Here's what Schwartz says about the deal in his blog.

MarketWatch ran a story today quoting some dude from Global Equities Research claiming Sun overpaid.

Was it too much? Considering how MySQL commands nearly half of the open-source database market, that's a potentially juicy client list of new customers--even though it's going to cost Sun $1 billion.

Jonathan Schwartz

(Credit: Sun Microsystems)

Jonathan Schwartz is a man on a mission. While at Linuxworld today, I took an hour to visit with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. After spending an hour prodding Jonathan with questions about Sun's history and future with open source, I was left with one clear impression:

Sun is rising, and open source is the driver behind its rebirth.

Jonathan is an executive who sincerely believes in open source as a fundamental business-model advantage, and not as a cheap complement to throw to the community in order to drive sales of "the real value." It's not a marketing gimmick with him. It's a strategy for winning. Jonathan, despite wearing a tie when we met, clearly understands the importance of community before commercial. Or, rather, he understands that community leads to commercial success.

As he stressed, the open-source battle is not between Red Hat and Sun. They are allies. Red Hat and Sun both want open source to succeed, and both want this phenomenon that started at the edge of the network to define the entire computing landscape.

And so I asked,

Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, sat down for a public chat with Fortune at the magazine's first iMeme technology conference on Thursday. In noting some of the differences between him and his predecessor, Scott McNealy, who handed over the reins about a year ago, Schwartz said: "He likes to drink wine out of a box; I like to drink wine out of a bottle."

News.com's Kari Dean McCarthy offered this quip in response: "Maybe they should hire someone who likes to drink wine out of a glass and see where that takes them."

In the latest word in a peculiarly public interchange, Linux leader Linus Torvalds appears inclined to take up Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz on his offer for dinner.

Last weekend, Torvalds expressed some "cynical" thoughts about Sun's intentions regarding its open-source Solaris operating system, which in turn led Schwartz to invite Torvalds to dinner to demonstrate Sun's intention of being a team player in the open-source realm, not a parasite.

In an interview Wednesday, Torvalds indicated he was interested in the dinner date, even given the condition Schwartz attached.

"I'm a fervent (believer and founding member) of the Free Food Foundation, and while Sun as usual has a few gotchas ('bring wine') in their licensing, it does sound like a good offer," he said.

But Sun has some work to do establishing its bona fides in Torvalds' eyes. In particular, he was clearly unhappy with how long it took Sun to make Java into an open-source project. The server and software company moved through multiple licensing regimes before finally releasing the core Java code under the General Public License (GPL), the same license that governs the Linux kernel.

"Quite frankly, if it wasn't for Java, I'd probably not be nearly as cynical," Torvalds said. "I've absolutely detested the Java licensing situation from the get-go, and a short time of being mostly open-sourced just hasn't yet had time to flush away all the bad taste of years of just stupid license shenanigans."

But Schwartz has had luck wining and dining potential adversaries in the past. As soon as Schwartz took over as CEO in 2006, his first call was to Intel CEO Paul Otellini. At that point, Sun sold x86 servers solely with Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processors. But the two met over dinner and wine.

"It was a bottle of Barolo at Delfina," Schwartz said earlier, referring to the San Francisco restaurant. Now, just over a year later, Sun now sells Intel-based x86 servers.

Days after Linus Torvalds discussed the possibilities of Linux and Solaris joining forces as open-source projects, Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz has invited the Linux leader to dinner to allay his suspicions about Sun's motives.

"We want to work together, we want to join hands and communities," Schwartz wrote on his blog Wednesday. "We have no intention of holding anything back, or pulling patent nonsense. And to prove the sincerity of the offer, I invite you to my house for dinner. I'll cook, you bring the wine."

Linux is governed by version 2 of the General Public License (GPL), which Torvalds considers superior so far to the GPL 3 that the Free Software Foundation is due to deliver in final form by the end of the month. Sun's OpenSolaris software--the open-source components of Solaris--is so far governed only by the Community Development and Distribution License, but Schwartz believes sees GPL 3 could let Sun "converge on a uniform license" for its open-source projects.

"We love where the FSF's GPL 3 is headed. For a variety of mechanical reasons, GPL 2 is harder for us with OpenSolaris--but not impossible, or even out of the question," Schwartz said.

That perspective shows some convergence with Torvalds' view, who said on a mailing list posting, "I don't think the GPL 3 is as good a license as (GPL) 2, but on the other hand, I'm pragmatic, and if we can avoid having two kernels with two different licenses and the friction that causes, I at least see the reason for GPL 3."

Torvalds expressed interest in one Solaris technology in particular, ZFS (the Zettabyte File System), which governs how data is stored on hard drives, with built-in features to span multiple drives and ensure data integrity. But in what he described as his "cynical" prediction, Torvalds forecast Sun would find a way to keep ZFS out of Linux.

Schwartz took pains to deny that possibility, saying Sun is "interested in seeing ZFS everywhere, including Linux, with full patent indemnity."

And more broadly, he said, "We should put the swords down--you're not the enemy for us, we're not the enemy for you."

Linux can benefit from ZFS and other Solaris software such as DTrace dynamic probe or Crossbow network virtualization, and Solaris could benefit from Linux driver software that gives it broader hardware support.

"It's not predation, it's prudence," Schwartz said. "Let's stop wasting time re-creating wheels we both need to roll forward."

(Credit: Sun)

Presenting a new generation of blade servers at a presentation in Washington Wednesday, Sun talked a lot about speed and open source and efficiency of operation. The company mentioned saving money several times. And, of course, there was much about competitive advantage.

Then, not for the first time, but with significant emphasis, Sun talked green. In this video we hear how the servers save energy, and that they contain no plastic. Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz says the new Sun-engineered blade servers are 100 percent recoverable materials.