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Barksdale has elected to return 300,000 shares granted to him in Netscape stock options. The most amazing part is that he did this on a day that the stock went up 6 points, on speculations of Netscape being bought-out by Sun. Realizing that Barksdale is pretty wealthy, this is still a pretty cool thing to do.

Maciej Stachowiak wrote in with this story over at LAN Times where you can read one writers opinion on MS's mutiliation of Java. I read this article and was just amazed by it. The writer has taken the Java Mantra of write once, run anywhere, and just said screw it, Windows is the only platform that matters. Wow. I'm glad that Sun has been having good luck at getting the Java logo of MS products, I just wish it would help convince people that J++ isn't really Java anymore.

Andy Tai wrote in to give us this link where you can read a news.com article where they talk about the future of Sun. We all know that Sun is in for rough times ahead. I personally want to see them follow Netscape's lead, but maybe they have other tricks up their sleeve.

Sun and IBM will be working together to roll-out yet another network based computer, that will be (surprise!) based on a JavaOS. The JavaOS, to be called JavaOS for Business, will be used in the new NCs that they are working on together. This deal calls for the rollout of machines in about a year and half.

Get ready to rumble as the tidal wave continues. First off, Andrew Mobbs sent us an important list of must-read RFCs. RFC2321, RFC2322, RFC2323, RFC2324, RFC2325. He also reminds everyone that ds.internic.net is no longer the canonical RFC archive. Luis Villa sent us Important news on the Java API. Gernot asked us to check This directory on ftp.gimp.org. Lastly, james sent us this one and Raj Dutt sent us this one.

Sun has begun to aggressivly price a developer's suite, which is even cheaper if you buy it along with a workstation. With this move Sun is trying to keep their marktet share, by not only keeping the hardware, but developing products that will keep people around-cheap.

This article was sent to us by Christopher Blizzard. It is a Sunworld write up comparing GUI toolkits. They cover everything from MFC to MacOS to Java to GTK and Motif. Interesting stuff.

Paul Fisher wrote in to tell us that the 1.0 version of Swing is now available. He also pointed me to Metal Theme. The new AWT features pluggable look and feel, and this is the first demo of it. The hi tech UI is sorta a cross between modern MacOS, BeOS, and some X UIs. Very nice looking if you're into that sort of thing (And I know you E users are)

Paul Fisher wrote in to tell us that the 1.0 version of Swing is now available. He also pointed me to Metal Theme. The new AWT features pluggable look and feel, and this is the first demo of it. The hi tech UI is sorta a cross between modern MacOS, BeOS, and some X UIs. Very nice looking if you're into that sort of thing (And I know you E users are)

Sun has made a move that certainly can't hurt: They've cut costs on Solaris x86 by 70% for anyone using competing OSs (including SCO and NT, but not Linux). You can Read this link sent to us by m.n. if you want to read more.

Zooko writes " Eiffel, an object oriented programming language, has been getting some good press as an alternative to Java. Today, Interactive Software Engineering, a maker of Eiffel development tools, announced the availability of the latest version of their software for Windows and Linux.

It is nice to see serious support of Linux by a commercial software company. Bertrand Meyer of ISE (and also noted object oriented guru) says: "Linux has been very good to us, and I hope we have been good to Linux too. It's one of our most important commercial platforms. And it's our #1 or #2 development platforms (#2 by a short distance from Windows if you count the number of machines, #1 if you ask developers what they want to develop on...)". See also the GNU Eiffel compiler, SmallEiffel"

Read this article over at Sun about Press Releases. It talks about how computer companies seem to use them now to express what they are going to do instead of what they originally were intended for:Telling us what they are doing. Product announcements and the like are cool, but do we really need a press release hyping stuff that will happen in another year? Thanks to Eugenio Sanchez for pointing me to this one.

Dax Kelson wrote in to tell us about a porting package from Sun for Solaris x86. Apparently you can get free CDs that include Solaris 2.6 x86 and lots of other goodies that you programmer types will enjoy. Check it out here.

Eric Anderson sent us this story over at the current issue of SunWorld which discusses the Compaq/Digital purchase. I think the scariest part of this whole thing is that Compaq can afford to do this.

Simon Janes wrote in with a very interesting editorial for us to read. This marks the first time that someone besides me has had an Editorial posted on Slashdot, but this piece is so worth reading that I just had to post it. Simon writes about the hardware and software industry, and specifically Sun. His conclusions are "out there" but each time I read this thing, I think he's more and more right. Pay attention guys because this is a big one. Everything after this point is written by Simon Janes.

After reading The Washington Post today (" Sun's Lonely Battle", 8 Feb 1998 H1, H15), it struck home to me that Sun needs to be given hope against Microsoft and we all need some kind of hope for a good machine architecture in return. First look at what has happened to other processor architectures in the last 12 months:

Alpha Compaq has stated nothing about what it plans to do with Digital's Alpha making everyone wildly speculate about what is is going to do with it. Some do not like how Compaq has made its hardware very Windows specific or hard to administer at the bare-metal level (no BIOS? you mean I need a floppy disk with Compaq tools? how INCONVENIENT!)

PowerPC Motorola is retargetting PowerPC towards embedded applications because of Apple's monopolistic intents. Personally, I think Steve Jobs has a deeper plan of revenge against Apple, and is running it into the ground under the guise of being a saviour. Motorola was *just* about to come out with a line of G3 based PC's and Apple ruined it. I can imagine a lot of people at PowerComputing are so agry with Steve Jobs, that they would surely create an instant medical condition if they met Steve on sight. Motorola ate a $100M loss because of it-- which was really immature (the "we won't play your game anymore" game), Motorola & IBM should have sued the collective pants off of Apple for turning over the PowerPC apple-cart (the "we won't play your game anymore" game played the CORRECT way).

Intel Intel's offerings are increasingly getting proprietary, and proprietary means expensive. When and if the Merced processor based on IA-64 comes out, it will require a massive compiler re-engineering on the hands of the Free Software Foundation/Cygnus/LDC. On top of that Intel is targetting the Merced for "mainframes". Once you append the word mainframe to a computer, the price of that computer multiplys by several hundred percent. AMD and Cyrix are working hard to present alternatives to Intel, but in a market dominated by Intel and Microsoft, I fear that they will have limited sucess in this arena.

StrongARM A majority of the StrongARM design team have left their posts rather than work for Intel, who apparently now owns the rights to StrongARM. Granted, the StrongARM isn't your super-duper high performance server-class type of microprocessor, but I felt that it would have made for an excellent base for laptop computers.

MIPS MIPS machines sit there in the background. Acer at one time had a MIPS machine you could buy, but that disappeared into the chasm of Wintel. Cobalt Microservers is a start-up who could potentially turn MIPS around. Silicon Graphics is constantly in trouble with shareholder lawsuits so therefore has a cloud over its future.

Where is the hope then? I feel that it is with Sun. The SPARC and UltraSPARC have not had this kind of mayhem perpetuated on them. They are open specifications of which many other companies have implemented and sell-- however Sun is the largest, and most recognizable of them. Much of the hardware Sun has produced is still usable today so except for volume, Sun hardware has a similar history to that of Intel-based hardware (starting from the 386).

Sun needs help for this lonely fight, and it has one excellent place to turn to for it: The Linux Developer Community. Sun needs to follow the two-step method of world domination:

1. Officially support the Linux developer community (LDC) to support all grades of Sun hardware, from the low end (which are already pretty well supported) to the higher end (which are hard for the LDC to support because of lack of access and documentation. Sun needs to recognize that even though its Solaris is good, people love to have choices when it comes to what they run on their hardware. Sun, when it takes this first step, which Digital has already taken, must follow it with the step Digital has not taken--
2. Recognize and promote Linux as an alternative operating system for workstations and servers and ship it as a preinstalled option. I followed a banner advertisement yesterday from Wired news to Digital's little press story on the Titanic being rendered on Alpha hardware. Linux was not even mentioned ONCE in this press statement from Digital. This is not support of Linux on Digital's part, this is a cover-up. (If you go to Digital's Sucess Stories site to find customers who use Digital hardware, you will not even find Linux listed as an operating system option. Another coincidence?) When and if Sun takes the first step of supporting the LDC, it must also follow with the second step-- Promoting of the alternatives as well.

Sun is fighting a lonely battle indeed, but the Linux Developer Cavalry is there, waiting in the woods for Sun's call. Sun, are you listening? Victory is two years away, shine in the next millenium.

Ok, now I'm (Rob) back with a few closing remarks. I think that RedHat has proven that you can take the Linux OS, treat the Linux Community good (RPM, RHAD) and produce a quality product that you can sell. Sun is in a similiar position- they control the hardware, but if they were to openly support and port to Linux, they could take advantage of the amazing power of the Linux Community. Then Sun could concentrate on the 'value added' stuff that makes their platform special. Sure, it means ditching Solaris, but it allows Sun to focus programmers on stuff that isn't already being done better, elsewhere. I'm sure a handful of specialists devoted to Sparc/Linux would produce an amazingly optimized Linux Kernel. This would produce the fastest possible Linux platform, and it woudl make the rapidly growing Linux Population buy Sun hardware instead of Digital.

It wouldn't be easy, but I suspect it could be done. What do you guys think?

While the rest of us are still in Awe over the Compaq/Digital buyout, there is an excellant article over at sun about the situation. The future of the Alpha is at stake here, so it is probably worth reading. This one was sent to us by Fredrik Lundh

Two weeks after announcing a partnership with TCI, Sun Microsystems has announced its long awaited major Java partner. Motorola, has licensed the "full family of Java platform technologies" for its embedded products.

Two weeks after announcing a partnership with TCI, Sun Microsystems has announced its long awaited major Java partner. Motorola, has licensed the "full family of Java platform technologies" for its embedded products.

Sun will be announcing the release, on Tuesday, of a new line of work stations called Darwin. These stations will be designed to compete with the burgeoning NT boxes which are making serious inroads into the workstation area, a traditional Sun stronghold. Sun is hoping that they can hold off the sapping of UNIX boxes from this arena. UNIX box sales have been slipping recently, and it is expected that they will slip a further 70,000 this year, bringing the total sales to a 590,000 that will most likely be sold this year.

Paul Mickus must have been browsing Sun's web site extensively since he mailed me a pair of interesting tidbits. The First discusses Sun's Activator Software, and MS's stance on it. The Second talks about an OS trade in similiar to the now Legendary SCO offer a few months back. I am a bit confused about this one because Linux is mentioned in the first OS list, but it is not apparently in the list of eligible operating systems towards the end of the offer. To bad... I really might have ditched Linux for Solaris. On an x86 box. Right.

Paul Mickus must have been browsing Sun's web site extensively since he mailed me a pair of interesting tidbits. The First discusses Sun's Activator Software, and MS's stance on it. The Second talks about an OS trade in similiar to the now Legendary SCO offer a few months back. I am a bit confused about this one because Linux is mentioned in the first OS list, but it is not apparently in the list of eligible operating systems towards the end of the offer. To bad... I really might have ditched Linux for Solaris. On an x86 box. Right.

Dave Hill sent us this link at SunWorld. It is a very pro linux article written by a Sun based magazine. Very cool.

m.n. writes the following update on the new line of sparc stations that I definately can't afford, but certainly would desire. If anyone wants to donate a sparc station to Slashdot, lemme know *smile*. Anyway "Sun is expected to unveil three new Ultra workstations this month. The first is the Ultra 5 which is expected to be powered by a 270 Mhz UltraSparc II processor. List pricing is expected to be below $5000. Taking up a slot in the middle of the workstation line is the Ultra 10. I haven't found many details other than this is anticipated to have a 300Mhz UltraSparc II and price below $10,000. The monster of the product line is going to be called the Ultra 60 which will be a multiprocessor and start around $20,000.

Details are sketchy outside of this, but all machines are expected to have 4 PCI slots, a gigabit switched bus, UltraSCSI, a minimum of 64MB ECC RAM, 100Tx ethernet and whoop ass graphics."