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Cobalt Acquisition Good For Open Source Community?
kirwin writes: "InfoWorld offers some insight to the possible rewards that the Open Source community could reap, thanks to the
Sun's acquisition of Cobalt Networks." I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I'm gonna adopt ye old wait-and-see before I
let it bug me.
"Sun is Microsoft with smaller teeth"
I sorta agree. I am a Sun employee so take this with a pinch of salt. Even within Sun, the general perception of Scott McNealy is that of someone itching to be the next Bill Gates, only a much more vicious one.
Remember, he a 100% marketing droid who can't code to save his life, unlike Bill who is a coder-turned-CEO, an entirely different breed. Much as we may hate MS, Bill actually grasps technology Scott wouldn't in a 100 years.
When they put Scott on the board of GE, at Comdex he actually pointed at the bulb and said wouldn't it be cool that the bulb will be running a JVM in the next 2 years once Jini takes off ?
I mean, WTF ?!! Why would anyone want a JVM in a bulb ? So Scott says, the bulb will now be able to "proactively inform the user when its about to go out of action" ! Jesus Christ! A 65 cent bulb will now have a JVM. And that's gonna cost how much ?
My colleagues & managers were so thoroughly embarassed by that remark. One of the guys said "Scott just doesn't get it"
He then used a KVM on a Palm Pilot to blow the horn of a car & said that was "cool"! Even Bill would have come up with a less sillier demo.
I shudder to think of an MS with Scott at its helm.
"That's the only thing, other than money, that it's interested in."
True. "And, yes, since it's a big corporation this is as it should be."
False. I see this a lot on Slashdot. Why is it that when an organization or individual is trying to make money, all other ethics become irrelevant? Would it be OK for Sun to torture Microsoft employees to get proprietary information out of them? After all, they're "just trying to make money".
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
I quote again: "That's the only thing, other than money, that [Sun]'s interested in. And, yes, since it's a big corporation this is as it should be."
The only thing. The only thing. Meaning they should not (should not) be interested in the environment, the welfare of employees/customers/total strangers, the rest of the economy, etc. That's a very powerful statement and not one I support.
I am interested in computers -- that does not mean that it's OK for me to torture people."
Correct. Because you are also a member of society, a human being, maybe a parent or member of a church, etc. Corporations are many of these things as well.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
On the other hand, Sun might just get burried if it tries to ignore the Open Source movement.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Dude, even if it were true, which it's not, Rob wouldn't do that. Why? Because Rob has ethics. Proof: "Hot Grits". Rob believes in Free Speech, and so he hasn't run the spammers off /.. Despite the fact that they make his life hell, that they make low-scored posts essentially unreadable, and that they don't contribute jack shit to the community. Yeah, Rob has ethics. What, you think he runs /. for the money? The dude puts his *soul* into this site, and you have the nerve to impugn his motives? Think before you post!
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
No moron, not buy it to begin with.
"...people have ethics... Corporations don't."
The problem isn't that I misunderstand you. It's that I disagree with you. No, corporations don't generally have ethics. But they should. Corporations enjoy benefits from society (above and beyond the benefits enjoyed by the individual members). Therefore they have a moral duty to contribute back to society, above and beyond the products they produce.
Corporations are treated much like regular individuals in nearly all ways--except that individuals have moral duties while corporations (supposedly) do not. Why not?
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
I think most people underestimate how big this is. It means that most office workers will be able to do their days work with free software. Sure, there are going to be problems with it, but that is why we are going to have the source.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You are an idiot. You're an idiot because you are too stupid to go to the page listed as my URL and determine that I am, in fact, male, and thus cannot be anyone's girl friend. No, I'm not CT's boy friend, either - and if you weren't a chickenshit AC, you could determine that, too.
Fuck it. Not replying to you fuckers seems to be the logical thing to do, but it hasn't worked. Y'all have made -1 necessary, and made 0 unreadable. Well, no more. I'm going on a quest, starting today, to figure out exactly how to make you go away and stay away. Or, to make it so I don't have to see you. Anyone who sees this and wants to help, send me an e-mail.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
StarOffice needs a lot of rewrite, I agree. Their own widget set needs to be replaced with gnome. Their tools need to be made into bonobo components. Missing pieces need to be replaced. But that's stuff that we do well. Reading and writing the files, rendering them correctly, and actually editing the files, that's what we need the StarOffice code for.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Other than that I thought the article made a reasonable point. Sun
hardware is really a long way ahead of Intel-based for SMP, and SMP is
still much easier to write software for than clusters. The importance
of Linux for the traditional UNIX user is that it seems to be setting
the pace for UNIX interoperability.
The article is based on the premise than Sun will leave the Cobalt hardware running Linux. It's also misses the fact that recent Cobalt hardware is Intel based, though that strengthens the argument.
I think Sun will replace Linux with Solaris because of the mindset they have that Solaris is better in all ways. This will hurt Linux, and not help Sun as much as it could if they didn't do that.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Sun knows Solaris. They know how it works, what it's strengths are, and what its weaknesses are. They know how to support it, how to upgrade it, and where it is most likely to fail. In short, it is a smart business decision sheerly in how they will support their own products
Will Sun ever jump onto the Linux bandwagon? Not in the forseeable future. The simple fact is, Sun currently makes its $$ on the big boxes, and Linux has a lot of ground to make up in that arena.
--Mid
Look, folks, they would not be Open-Sourcing a $70M+ product (StarOffice) if they didn't want the community buy-in.
Ahem. And what else could they do with StarOffice? Sell it? I don't think so. It's buggy, bloated, tries to pretend it's the only application you'll ever need (tm), and is generally full of cruft. It cannot compete with MS Office. It's actually not even in the same league.
Sun is an old-style company trying to find its way into this new world.
Er... Sun is Microsoft with smaller teeth. If it manages to kick Microsoft's teeth in (with the help of DoJ or otherwise), it'll become the biggest fish in the pond. That's the only thing, other than money, that it's interested in. And, yes, since it's a big corporation this is as it should be.
Basically, Sun is practicing diplomacy towards OpenSource, where diplomacy is defined as "saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a stick".
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
So why would it matter if they bought a company that makes low-end intel hardware??
See my point?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Solaris x86 has no standing in the Intel arena. The only people who care about it are people who are also running Solaris on Sparc boxes.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Solaris only shines on Sun hardware. It's pretty ropey on Intel hardware; it's only there to make it possible to run Sun only shops.
Mr Petreley has a history of anything BUT Microsoft for years. OS/2, and now Linux.
./ headder.
Also note the spin of the article and
"It's currently fashionable to bash Sun Microsystems. But open-source advocates have much to be thankful for when it comes to Sun."
How about "the open source development labs"....it is not about Open Source, but instead Linux.
The article is about Linux and how Sun is playing with Linux. No where is he talking about the BIGGER view of OpenSource, but of the smaller part of it....Linux.
If your adjenda is Linux....fine. Open Source is about *MORE* than just linux, and if you are willing to invoke the inclusive nature of Open Source, and then only talk about Linux aren't you helping to set up in the minds of others that OpenSource==Linux, rather than the reality that Open Source is MORE than Linux?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Sun is merely entertaining the idea of converting Cobalts to Solaris. There has not been a decision made on this. It should be common sense to consider using your own OS when you make such an acquisition. Perhaps Sun will replace Linux with Solaris. Or they could leave Linux. They could scrap all Linux and Solaris and run FreeBSD. The point is, the decision has not been made yet.
OK. Let me chop this into smaller pieces for your digestive pleasure.
Entities (people and corporations) have duties. One of those duties is to follow the laws. Thus, regardless of Sun's interests, it cannot torture MS employees. Note that duties are mandatory.
Entities also have interests. Interests are NOT mandatory. You are interested in butterflies, I am interested in pr0n. Fine. As long as interests do not conflict with duties, there is no problem here.
Now we come to the interesting part: people have ethics (==morals, ==personal value systems). Corporations don't. Sometimes people who run corporations make these corporations act in accordance with their personal ethics, but per se corporations have no ethics. In a way, their ethics are laws and nothing more.
Thus, Sun as a corporation has certain duties (including its legal duty to the shareholders to make money, for example). It also has certain interests (be the biggest fish in the pond, make more money). As long as these interests do not conflict with duties, it's all fine. Sun as a corporation does not have ethics.
Now, Scott McNealy is a person and has his personal value system. It seems that in his personal value system playing "King of the Hill" against Bill Gates and Larry Ellison takes a very large spot. Sun's corporate policy, to some extent, reflects that.
Whether Sun "should" be interested in other things -- well, I'd say it could but there is no obligation on it to do so. Sun could be interested in the environmental problems, but it does not have to (ethically, as well as legally). Ditto with the welfare of total strangers. As to employees and customers, use common sense -- both groups are vital to Sun's success so it is very much interested in their welfare.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I don't think Sun will be adopting open source alternatives just yet. It would be *nice*, but I think we have to consider its business model.
Anyone who has ever even inquired about selling Sun stuff knows that Sun detests "Box Pushing". It doesn't want to get grouped in with Intel whitebox sales -- flat and becoming flatter and insanely unprofitable except to the big guys (e.g., Dell). Intel-based megaservers, however, are profitable.
Sun wants to sell solutions because there is more money involved on both the VAR and Sun's end. Sun gets the sales on software and hardware, the VAR gets the sales in services, plus the markup on the actual equipment. Going open source for some of its pieces or moving to GPL therefore means a substantial drop in sales.
They also would have far less control in how to implement solutions; quality on the VAR end would probably suffer as open-source development changes rapidly -- that is, printed material can seldom keep up with most open-source projects unless it is an established open-source work (e.g., perl). If you've ever looked at a Sun manual, you know that they do a pretty good job at them.
The reason most Sun resellers really aren't sticking up for GNU/Linux is that *anyone* who sells Sun stuff has to be able to invest $30K in Sun equipment and software and do $500K a year in sales... It takes 6 months and with lots of training. You must also submit a *business plan* .... Yes, that's right, just to SELL Sun boxes. With this much constraint on their businesses, most VAR would *not* want Sun to be subjugated to the wily, chaotic, and often anti-profit nature of open-source development.
Companies like Red Hat are trying to do similar stuff with GNU/Linux, but I haven't been able to see through the smoke and hype just yet to determine whether or not GNU/Linux solutions providers can seriously compete with Sun solutions providers.
The Cobalt acquisition means that Sun wants to get its feet wet in solution-providing for other markets, but not too close and not while risking its own name. It will, however, adopt Cobalt to the "Sun style" of doing things to work within the current business model.
Lucas
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Spindletop Blackbird, the GNU/Linux Cube.
... maybe that stupid lawsuit with Apple's G4 Cube will be dropped, since Sun may actually remember the NeXT cubes...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Look, folks, they would not be Open-Sourcing a $70M+ product (StarOffice) if they didn't want the community buy-in. Sun is an old-style company trying to find its way into this new world. We want something from them - we want Java to be Open Source. Jumping down their throats is probably the wrong way to get that :-) . Thus, rather than foam at the mouth about Solaris on the Cobalt, let's just wait and see what plays out here.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Don't much like it.
Ñ'
Some may dispute Sun's record, but from what I see, Sun is already very open with source code and standards. This is likely to continue. Consider Star Office as an example. They took a closed source system and opened it up. The first iteration was with the SCSL and they later revised their license to GPL. There is no guarantee that the Cobalt system will be more open, but if I had to take a guess I would think it to be likely.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
He usually hits it on the head, but I think that Sun is more likely to co-opt Open Source rather than aid it with the aquisition of Cobalt.
For example, take the entire Intel thing. The real dynamic is that Intel/Cobalt/MIPS/Linux perception of the unwashed masses is that Cobalt and/or Linux provide a cheaper, better alternative than the expensive stuff from Sun.
Now, what happens if Sun changes the chip to the new Ultrasparc IIe, and runs Solaris-Lite on it? Sun gets a new product line that is still, for all the reasons why Cobalt was successful, is going to allow them to serve a low-end audience without killing off their current higher-end offerings. They expand the pie. And this is likely to be the scenario that Sun follows.
The question is, at whose expense is this pie expanded? Linux/xBSD/etc. running on Intel, that's who. The "dumb" users will see the same experience as they're getting now. Savvier users won't see Solaris as being inferior to Linux, most likely, and the upgrade path "benefits" will not be lost on them.
I believe that this is going to be a bad thing, overall.
he stresses the predominance of Intel hardware and somehow gives the impression tha the is unaware of Solaris/x86.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.