Naw, Sun never liberated it.

Sun did announced "NeWS is Free (only $1000)" which was kind of a kick in the balls and abuse of the word "free".

"Free (only $1000)" discussion on usenet:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.windows.news/c/-G1l_372AP8/...

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.windows.news/c/YtZzYMZ587M/...

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.org.sug/c/IXcXK7hKgUQ/m/nf8...

A couple of my flames about the situation:

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/NeWS/Explanation.txt

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/NeWS/sevans.txt

And to cleanse the palette, DSRH's epic "Sun Deskset == Roy Lichtenstein Painting on your Bedroom Wall" flame (David SH Rosenthal was one of the original authors of NeWS, with James Gosling, and also wrote the X11 ICCCM):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38768724