Sun Unveils More Linux Strategies

A number of people have submitted the press release from Sun Microsystems about their latest announcements in conjunction with Linux. Highlights from this one include the promised release of "New single- and multiprocessor systems, to be announced mid-year, will use the x86 architecture and be capable of running thousands of Linux applications natively." As well, they are expanding the Cobalt line of servers, but even more interestingly they are going to "freely offer" parts of Solaris - but no license specified that I saw. They are also releasing "ABICheck", which should check compatibility between Linux/Solaris. C|Net is carrying coverage now as well. And it looks like Lineo and SuSe are going to get competition in the embedded and telecom support area - I wonder if that's tied to the OSDL announcement. It's good to see that they are getting on the right track - now let's hope they stay the course.

Comments

Highlights for the impatient....

[PoiBoy]

Having read the press release, here's what I get out of it:

1. The x86 architecture with Linux will only be used in their Cobalt and other small file/print server solutions.

2. They are not releasing any new workstations based on x86 processors.

3. They plan on working with others to support Linux on the Sparc architecture.

4. They offer products which allow Linux programs to run under Solaris.

Now for the interesting questions:

1. Is their work in Linux part of a long-range strategy to phase out Solaris? After all, they make money selling hardware. If a free UNIX is available, why waste money developing Solaris.

2. Are they taking a play out of IBM's Linux-everywhere strategy? How soon before we see E10k's and E15k's shipping with virtual machine software able to support 1000's of Linux images?

Just my take on the article.

why linux

[Ubi_NL]

This post is not ment to troll but...

I keep wondering why big companies like HP and Sun choose linux, instead of freeBSD. Although I'm not an expert on any of them, as far as I understand the BSD structure resembles SunOS and HP/UX more than Linux. Both BSD and linux are open source, and the BSD license even seems to be preferable to companies if, in the end, they decide to go closed source anyway.
Can someone explain this to me?

Re:why linux

[hoggy]

Because Linux has mindshare and is a big buzzword at the moment. Make no mistake, the big guys are behind Linux because it's a good marketing move. I applaud the efforts of IBM, HP, and Sun in this regard - but one should be very careful before getting into bed with them.

Linux is a convenient tool for IBM to rescue their big iron from obscurity, for HP to save themselves from obscurity, and for Sun to sound like they're not falling behind IBM and HP.

There's an argument that picking a GPLed OS means that competitors can't commercialise their work, but I'm not convinced about this one. If you look closely, few lines of code have come out of these houses. They're much more interested in making sure that their hardware can run Linux, or Linux apps, than in supporting the general Open Source / Free Software movement. It's a careful play to ensure that if the OS ends up being commoditized, people don't pick Intel's hardware.

Re:why linux

[foobar104]

I keep wondering why big companies like HP and Sun choose linux, instead of freeBSD.

I can't speak about Sun or HP, but some time ago SGI started working on tons of stuff for Linux, including but not limited to their XFS filesystem. More info: http://oss.sgi.com.

It's pretty clear, when you think about it, why they chose to release their valuable technologies for Linux rather than BSD: the GPL. GPL is, contrary to what Microsoft might say, a pretty business-friendly license. If a business spends billions of dollars over decades developing, say, XFS, then releases it under a BSD-style license, then anybody can incorporate that technology into their commercial products for free.

On the other hand, releasing XFS for Linux under the GPL means SGI gets to say they have XFS on IRIX and also on Linux, but it does not mean that Sun can put XFS in Solaris or whatever.

You can't make any money, directly, off of producing GPL'd code, but you can at least prevent your competitors from benefiting from your work.

Re:why linux

[SurfsUp]

I keep wondering why big companies like HP and Sun choose linux, instead of freeBSD. Although I'm not an expert on any of them, as far as I understand the BSD structure resembles SunOS and HP/UX more than Linux. Both BSD and linux are open source, and the BSD license even seems to be preferable to companies if, in the end, they decide to go closed source anyway.
Can someone explain this to me?

Because developers tend to prefer the GPL, which garauntees that we won't be buying back the fruits of our own labor one day from someone who's taken the whole thing, added some decoration, and used it to are part of some kind of toll booth on the information superhighway.

Linux = low to midrange, Solaris == everything els

[kin_korn_karn]

It's a marketing strategy.
Solaris is known as "slowaris" because it is optimized for SMP systems. Single CPU boxes are cheap. Sun was getting rejected by potential customers because to get the full benefit of Solaris you have to buy a massive box. If they vend Linux then they can target both the cheapskates/small companies and the huge enterprise vendors.

Linux runs well on Sparc chips, BTW.

You forgot SunFire, Scott.

[thedarb]

Scott Scott Scott... You are so close to hitting the mark. You forgot the most valuable part of Linux... it's VM ability.

Now if you were to port Linux to your SunFire platform, you could have a direct competitor with IBM's Mainframe Linux. How is that?

Imagine taking an E15k system... Setting it up as a single domain running Linux. Now, under that, use the Usermode Linux to create VM servers. No longer would this platform limit a system to particular boards... All these VM's could run in that large single domain, sharing it's CPU's, disks and IO. This would compete directly with IBM's implimentation of Linux on the mainframes.

Now let's take it a step further... IBM's mainframe is great for Linux VM's needing I/O intensive tasks. It's CPU isn't meant for many large number crunching VM's. The SunFire are. So while IBM gets big offering services on Linux VM such as Samba & NFS file services, Oracle & DB2, Enterprise email... You could be selling for the CPU intensive side. Graphics apps, XML and PDF parsers, engineering, etc.

Sun, you cannot afford to not do this. Sun's big server market will depend on it. It's only a matter of time before IBM fill's the niche for the CPU intensive VM's... And while I do like IBM and their commitment to Linux, I'd hate to see Sun drop off the radar. Competition is what brings about inovation, it's almost cliche.

*TheDarb
GUI-Lords.org

jakarta

[j3110]

Does this mean they are going to be nicer to the Jakarta folks???

http://jakarta.apache.org/site/news.html under "30 January 2002 - That flaming fireball in the sky..."

Sun's always been friendly to OSS as long as it gives them good press to be so. I'm not certain they are so good at heart. Maybe they were just scarred by microsoft changing the meaning of Java that they don't trust an ad-hoc group of unpaid developers to not do the same.

New x86 IO systems?

[1010011010]

Maybe Sun will make a new x86 system that has improved I/O -- like, using UPA rather than (or in addition to) PCI.

Since Sun will not be worrying about Windows support, they can extend the architecture a bit. Still use x86 processors, but enhance the surrounding systems to make it less PC-like and more big-server-like.

Linux as a replacement for Solaris

[dcavanaugh]

Sun's main purpose in life seems to be as the launching platform for Oracle. Some of Sun's competitors have better performance, some have better prices, some claim to have both, but nobody has the level of Oracle support that Sun/Solaris gets. Without Oracle, there would be no Sun. Considering Larry's announcement about migrating all of Oracle's corporate systems to Linux, the handwriting is on the wall for Solaris. From Oracle's perspective, Linux is a great way to enhance their position vs. M$ SQL server on the low end, and go after IBM DB2 on the high end, all at the same time.

If anyone believes what Larry says, it looks like Oracle will elevate Linux to the top tier of supported OS, probably at the expense of Solaris. This really sucks for me because I committed to the SPARC/Solaris platform about 8 months ago. Oracle support of Linux wasn't quite there yet and I didn't have time on my side. I always thought a transition to Linux was inevitable, but I thought it would take another year or two.

From Sun's point of view, they are probably looking for a smooth way to transition SPARC Solaris to SPARC Linux, so as to drop Solaris entirely as a cost-cutting measure. Sun needs either a huge boost in SPARC CPU performance or lower pricing, preferrably both. Otherwise they will get killed by high-end X86 systems.

I think the ultimate fate of Sun/Solaris will be the same as Digital/VMS: It's another attack from the commodity boxes, armed with a standard operating system, this time without the M$ nonsense.

Re:Also Java 1.4 out

[JewFish]

Mod this one down. Informative usually means its true. Java 1.4 RC1 has been released at http://java.sun.com/j2se/