Slashdot Mirror

At least Sun knows about what risks it takes to administrate a Sun Java webserver :-)

Actually, its server business has grown the last couple of quarters.

Ummm, you must read something different to me then.... Sun's server market dropped from 10.3% to 9.5% last quarter.

4th spot overall.

Yet deliberately choosing a non-Linux-compatable license is indeed a pretty blatent attempt to divide the Free Software community.

Sun execs enjoy spreading confusion in the Open Source Community as well as with the Free Software guys; by trying to twist what the OSI stands for.

So their attempts to divide the community are clear.

And regarding the "and conquor" part of the phrase, Sun's execs also publicly state that solaris is primarily competing against Windows and Linux.

It's not a value judgement - and I certainly agree that Sun is within it's rights to pick non-GPL-compatable licenses. I just find it a fooish way to piss off the community rather than to inspire people to embrace their practices.

Not as popular as its Itanium counter parts Opterons have been expanded beyond 4 way smp.

These feeling go away after a bit, but I miss the good old Internet. I'm referring to the one before everyone thought it was a well spring of financial bliss. It is getting embarrassing to tell people that I make my living on this medium. Some days it feels like a theme park, with all the cheesy sound and lights. Shudder.

Ok. First, let's define some terms. From Merriam-Webster: Activism: a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.

By the above definition of "activism," I think that emailing and/or calling a company to express polite opposition to one of its policies qualifies. If you disagree with this, please cite your sources, and explain why you consider them to be more reliable than Mirriam-Webster.

> you sound more like an environmentalist than someone who has a clue.

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Firstly where do you see any mention of activism in any
> of the articles linked?

This link [3rd link in the article] contains: But based on your feedback, we are happy to continue to offer access to the Solaris 8 Foundation Source.

> Secondly if you think someone is going to sit through millions
> of email if they were spammed...

I assume you mean "sift?" No, I don't think for a minute that a human being is going to manually parse every email coming into a company. Many companies use mail server software to perform tasks like this (i.e. routing email based on receiver, subject or content). Also, most companies have multiple incoming email addresses, and sometimes they make these publically available. If you pick the right ones, you can often get a human being at the other end. Furthermore, if you use a decent subject line, you can get their attention and present your case without them having to read the email.

And if you just reach some marketing droid who doesn't care, and who creates some sort of rule to route all related email to /dev/null, you've gained a small victory by making him/her realize that many people are pissed off.

> ...you're off your rocker

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Emails such as those are almost always sent to a null account.

First, I doubt you can prove that. Second, are you saying that because I may not be heard I shouldn't even try? Is that your logic? "It's too hard, so just give up." Cynicism may sound cool on Slashdot, but it's no way to run your life.

> Company X will not listen to you.

Provably false. I've received numerous emails back from companies I've contacted. Some are personal, some are canned. Either way you're point's disproven.

> Company X has a paid staff that looks into how the company
> is going to make money.

Missing the point. Often, companies employ professionals in a "Marketing department." Their role is to sell the company's product and make the company look good in public. These people are notoriously sensitive to criticism, and it's part of their job to parse that criticism and relay it up the food chain.

> You know that thing called money right?

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> Company X's bottom line is keeping investors happy on
> returns, not what the consumer wants as most people would
> like to think.

False dichotomy. Companies keep investors happy by keeping the stock profitable. They often do this my selling large amounts of product to consumers. Ergo, a company's bottom line is often (not always) inextricably tied to kepping consumers happy.

Bridgestone would agree with me. They've lost over US$1.3 billion in less than a year, and their sales are off 50%. Killing your customers is the antithesis of keeping them happy.

> Clearly this is where you sound more like a 15 year old
> rebel without a cause, as opposed to someone with a clue.

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> This whole article has nothing to do with activism
> on any scale, so where did you get this rant from?

Already proven false: see above. Also, here's another quote from a different story, "Critics Force Microsoft To Drop Smart Tags." To be fair, Microsoft didn't really say that consumer feedback was the primary motive for the decision, but did say that "external feedback" was one of the motives. Nearly every published article I've seen (a couple dozen) expressed skepticism at Microsoft's stated motives, and the consensus is that they dropped Smart Tags because they were getting beaten bloody by the press (not coincidently, almost all users of Windows and IE). It's not solid proof, but it's close enough for me.

> Who threw a collective shit fit[?]

Well, nearly all of the technology press, for one. That's pretty important, eh? A Yahoo News search turned up 41 Smart Tag articles, nearly all of which are negative. There have been some positive articles, but most people hated the idea. Many who hated it let Microsoft know.

> Do you think the people at MS care at this point what someone,
> especially someone using alternatives to MS, thinks?

Yes, I do, and it's provably true. Microsoft responded nearly instantly to Smart Tag criticism. Microsoft responds fast and vociferously to many criticisms; if they didn't listen, they wouldn't resond. Duh.

> especially someone using alternatives to MS

IMHO, these people more than most, actually. They don't need to convince Joe Sixpack to use Windows - he buys a Gateway and uses whatever Gateway feeds him. People using non-MS products, however, often convince other people to switch away from MS products. Just my opinion, though.

> They just beat the Department of Justice

Not yet, they haven't. They may prevail in the end, but the case is far from over.

> which paves the way for them to do whatever they like

This is hard to argue with; they've shown nothing but contempt for the government, and they'll probably continue to do so.

> Surely you'd have to be kidding yourself if you think MS'
> backing off Smart Tags for now has anything to do with
> someone bitching about it.

I do think this; see above. Do you have a better explanation? In absence of convincing evidence either way, rational people are free to disagree. The only "evidence" most people have is the prepared speech of a Microsoft spokesdroid, which has evidently convinced very few people.

> Again your dissillusioned by thoughts of grandeur ... your
> original post sounds like nothing but someone who's been
> playing quake too long, and thinking they're some sort of
> "Cyber Super Hero"

Ad homonim; unrelated to the argument.

> I rest my case

I'm not sure what you mean by this. But if you really rest your case, then I sugest that you've lost. I've demolished nearly every point you've made. Not difficult, since nearly every phrase you typed contained one or more logical fallacies. Personally I think you're just another dumb-fuck troll. But hey, that's just my opinion.

"We all say so, so it must be true!"

So, what can you do? It isn't like the site is paying my bills or anything. The banner revenue just gives me a little extra money to blow on my expensive road cycling hobby. My real problem is that I'm having trouble to find advertisers these days. You would think a site geared toward Solaris admins would be pretty good demographics, but I don't get that many bites even though the click through rate is over 1% for the banners I host.

The moral of the story in my opinion is that it doesn't matter what value your particular banners are, the whole notion of banner advertising is in the toilet. I need a new way of doing things, but I haven't come up with anything that doesn't involve selling out majorly. I'm lucky though. This is just my hobby and it really doesn't cost much. If push comes to shove I can remove the banners entirely, but if I do I won't get cool bike stuff. ;)

The question seems to be how important is that whole "diverse code" thing? I mean, do I want a team of a dozen Java programmers? Or do I want 2 Prolog guys, 4 C++ guys, an APL geek... How do I crosstrain them? When people say "the best language for the task at hand" do they consider the factor of having people crosstrained in that language? Great. You know Smalltalk inside and out. You can make it run 100x faster than C++. So I implement my UI in Smalltalk. Now you go on vacation, and it crashes. I'm screwed. I can't train every programmer in every language.

I'm not sure where the mention of delinquient clients comes into this. You always have people who don't pay their bills, and the figure is higher than most people realize. Probably one of the reasons that ./ sold out to Andover is because they didn't have a gameplan for dealing with the rigors of selling a service like banner space. That is fine, that probably isn't what they wanted to do, but there are pretty effective tried and true ways to get people to pay their bills. I have found that the casual mention of a collection agency does wonders. It works through my personal site and my business site.

Also, do understand that these sort of NDA's are somewhat common when dealing with potentially explosive matters like this. Certainly Sun is interested in keeping tight lips, but they also would prefer to announce a solution along with the problem. It is an engineering problem where the "more eyes on the problem" approach doesn't necessarily bring about the greatest good.

I hate to sound elitist (well, no I don't) but most of us are used to compiling everything.

Luckily it's possible to get plenty of binaries for solaris, both for sparc and x86. Once you get GCC, bison, flex, gzip, and so on, you're pretty much home free. Most things that build on Solaris-sparc build just fine on Solaris-x86 (though not all, I'll admit) and if you can't build it with gcc, you don't want it.

This is simply rediculous, to claim that a few migrant customers are the result of a reliability issue. Microsoft can't even migrate its Hotmail service from Sun machines to NT because NT isn't scalable and reliable enough, but yet they say others are ready and able to make this jump.

The fact is that mainframes are probably the most reliable systems in commercial use, but there are compelling reasons why people use Sun hardware and software. Reliability and scalability are the main reasons, and practically any seasoned admin will tell you that NT has neither.

Possibly the most annoying thing about the Microsoft propeganda is the mention of the Ebay issue. I have written an extensive analysis of this in the past. In short, their problems were due to a system administration error, which Ebay admitted to later. Shame on Microsoft for claiming that their systems can be more reliable, regardless of the monkey behind the keyboard.

In case you've been living in another planet, SolarisCentral is all about supporting Open Source _and_ Solaris. Visit the site before you put your "Oh, I didn't know" hat on. Are you going to complain about the GNU banners too?

I can see this as an excellent test box for software and generally a cool workstation. My SparcStation 20 is treating me well, but I would consider an Ultra 5 to be worth the money to upgrade.

Right now there is no word about a discout for educational use, but you can expect an announcement to come soon about that. The last educational price was around $1,800, so this should drop considerably.

Solaris Central will posting new information as it comes up about the price drop.

Duane

Personally, I think this is excellent news for the Solaris and Linux platforms. Right now it only runs on x86, but Sun says they are considering a SPARC port.

Keep an eye on the lxrun web site for more news. There is a download link available. Solaris Central will be covering the product as well.

If you want to appeal to Solaris users who visit the site, you could make one of the optional sidebars listing news from Solaris Central (www.SolarisCentral.org).

I operate the site and would be glad to provide the text and links in a flat file if that would make things more convienent for you. mail me if you are interested.

If you want to appeal to Solaris users who visit the site, you could make one of the optional sidebars listing news from Solaris Central (www.SolarisCentral.org).

I operate the site and would be glad to provide the text and links in a flat file if that would make things more convienent for you. mail me if you are interested.

You might also want to check out a article in The Register about this. Keep an eye on Solaris Central for updated news on this issue.