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Sun's Linux Exec Departs
HyperbolicParabaloid writes "The NY Times (free reg blah blah) has an article about the departure of Sun's no.2 exec, but also mentions that
Stephen DeWitt, the vice president of an important business unit that leads Sun's efforts with the Linux operating system, quietly left Sun
on Friday, the company confirmed today."" And the question is: How will this affect projects like OpenOffice release and the on-again, off-again McNealy Linux relationship.
Hello???
N . tml?pagewanted=print&position=bottom
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/02/technology/02SU
Zander to quit Sun in July (good bye, and good riddance)
Sun Linux boss quits (blah.)
I think this is worse news for Sun than for Linux.
There is little or nothing Sun's OS can do now that Linux can't. And if Linux can't now, it will do soon.
I know that MS haters like to see Sun as in some way a friend - my enemy's enemies and all that - but the logic of a free OS applies just as much to Sun's offerings as it does to Microsoft's - maybe even more so as what Unix application will run on Solaris and not on Linux.
Sun will sooner or later have to realise that Linux will dominate the Unix OS market to an ever greater extent in the future. They will not have much oa future if they don't factor that into their plans.
Overall, Sun seems to be stuck between that proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to Linux.
.Net initiative.
Linux is probably their #1 competitor, and #1 hope. If I have a choice between Solaris, or Red Hat, I'd pick Red Hat every time. Cheaper, runs on cheaper hardware, and I still get great support for $60 to $240 a year, as well as getting all the power of Open Source, which is making Linux more powerful every single day.
If they support Linux, then they become another fish in the ocean with IBM, HP, Red Hat, and others, and they have to compete as one. If they support Solaris, then they can make the rules - but watch as their market shares erodes thanks to that "cheap, open system".
So what can Sun do? Good question. Java is probably Sun's best product, and perhaps it would be best if IBM bought Sun and then open sourced Java to keep combatting the
But either way, I love watching the competition, and that's the #1 reason why I'm glad Linux is on the market.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Wait a minute....he had something to do with LINUX?!? OMG!!!!!!!!!! The sky is falling in! Normal employee churn doesn't work the same with LINUX!
I don't think this will effect OpenOffice at all. It has been unleashed to the open source community, so even if Sun *wants* to abandon it, someone else can pick it up.
What about Java. There are currently 3 main platforms for Java pushed by Sun: Solaris, Windows and Linux. Mac also, but this is more of a push from Apple. I'd be much more concerned with what might happen with Java than OpenOffice.
As someone who recently had some admin work to do on a Cobalt RaQ3 I can only testify to the bone headedness of SUN's Linux efforts. I have the following points to make about SUN in relation to their so called Linux efforts:
.pkg installer. Considering that the system is based on the RPM system one does wonder why they didn't go a more compatible route.
It is nigh on impossible to get updates for third party packages (.pkg's) for older Cobalt machines. Cobalt had the brilliant idea of making a web browser based admin interface, thereby supposedly making it easy for newbies to administer the machine. This has the tangential effect of making the machines vulnerable to cracking (like IIS) because the admins have no idea of what they're doing and what they should be updating. Turning the machines over to someone who knows what bash is doesn't help immediately because installing software from the commandline is difficult as the whole system has been modified by SUN to make it difficult to get those CLI installs reflected in the web interface.
The news groups and online Cobalt boards of full of irate users asking for help, and , more importantly, not getting much from SUN. Almost all help is from other users. It took me almost three days of constant searching to find SUN documentation on how to roll my own
I needed a PHP update and a custom Webalizer in German. The PHP "make install" exited with an APXS error and after about a week someone told me that the Cobalt APXS script is buggy and outdated, after which I managed to do the install by hand. The Webalizer compilation was less error prone but the fact that I had to do it and the PHP installation by hand because there were no packages available says legions about SUN's commitment to the platform.
To get help from SUN you have to pay, and considering that you already payed for the machine and ISP costs etc, it is a slap in the face.
The experience was frustrating and only strangthened my conviction that SUN has almost no idea of what consumers and smaller operators want, and possibly that SUN will go out of the market because of this if they carry on in this manner.
Sun is facing an inexorable onslaught.
If they thought "Wintel" was creeping up their food chain, "Lintel" is lower priced still and hungrier for the UNIX market.
Sun needs to capitalize on its UNIX experience and to become part of the Linux solution, rather than reactively viewing circumstances as the Linux problem. They've made some good moves already, in terms of StarOffice acquisition and having some developers work on Gnome. But they need a coordinated vision that puts everything together. E15K database ervers working well with Linux server appliances which interact well through all the built-up Unix infrastructure (NFS, etc.)
IBM and HP have already seen the handwriting on the wall and are doing things to take advantage of the shifts going on in the marketplace.
Sun certainly has a lot to offer, they should put someone in charge who knows how to leverage that UNIX experience and to grow new markets based on their existing network of sales staff.
Java could figure prominently in such a strategy; but promoting Linux on SPARC seems to be more of an uphill battle, AFAICT.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
...they'd embrace the upcoming AMD Hammer architecture and build high-end Linux/Hammer workstations and entry- to mid-level servers around them. Kind of a Sun/Linux meets Apple deal: clean product line, not a lot of overlap, well designed, very cool. I say Linux rather than Solaris if only because it's impossible to do Solaris/x86 device drivers for everything, whereas Linux has a decent chance.
Of course, that'd freak out their SPARC people, so they'll never do it. Pity.
I'm telling you people, Sun has kicked off the quarter by announcing a new "Insanity First" initiative within the company. Nobody believes me. Here's a brief run-down of corporate goals within the next 4-8 months:
1) Replace all technical staff with tigers.
2) Replace the tigers with African bushmen who communicate with clicks and grunts. Scrap x86 Solaris, and release "Solaris For Hamsters, Gerbils, And Other Small Rodents". Meanwhile, move the tigers over to Technical Support to handle incoming calls.
3) Include a free copy of "The 1979 Guinness Book Of World Records" with every purchase order under over $3,000,000, with every instance of the word "from" highlighted.
4) One word: Mebibytes!!
5) Begin intentionally misrouting customer purchase orders and inventory shipments. Establish two divisions within the company, the Product Obfuscation Division, and the Product De-Obfucscation Division, overseen by a third division called "Buh". Staff all three departments with goats.
6) Give the goats stock options.
7) Pour billions of dollars into quantumcomputing with one simple goal -- To write an infinite loop that fires and re-hires Scott McNealy billions of times per second, so when the shit hits the fan, its impossible to determine whether or not he was in charge the moment any non-profitable decision was made.
8) Buy Compaq.
9) Cut off all business relations with any company that has the letter "B" in its name. Refer to all the companies who remain as "The Divine Council Of Broktou."
10) Stop selling Linux on the grounds that it screws up the company's expense reports. When you sell a free product, the profit margain is infinite, and Excel doesn't know how to handle that sort of math.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
>> the on-again, off-again McNealy Linux relationship.
Suspect Scott's going to be having an on-again, off-again relationship with Carly or Lou before this is all through.
Woah, an executive just departed from a large company?
This is a rare opportunity, people. Party's at my place.
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w . ytimes.com/2002/05/02/technology/02SUN.html&submit
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They may have lost their Linux Exec, but they recently acquired Whitfield Diffie! (For those not aware, Whitfield Diffie is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the technology used in PGP and elsewhere)
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
DeWitt, was a very talented CEO and did great things for Cobalt.
His leaving will have absolutely NO direct effect on Open Office (there's a political assumption made by the poster that doesn't fit), and might be a good thing for Linux in Cobalt.
In fact, the sooner Sun realizes it is in a very difficult position because of x86 Linux, the better. The Cobalt appliances are overpriced and underpowered, the Cobalt line has all sorts of issues, the not the least of which is a non-standard distribution. Standard Distribution is what the customer wants, not an appliance. Linux seems to be eating Sun's lunch as much, if not more, than NT.
The Solaris faction will never allow Linux to co-exist peacefully within Sun, the SPARC faction will never adopt x86, not to mention push x86 Linux, so neither the software side nor the hardware side, politically, will ever truly adopt Linux.
Furthermore, the sales force is keen on the BIG hardware sale. No Sun sales person wants to sell a $2,000 x86 Linux box.
About the best thing you can say for Linux within Sun is there's a small amount of hope that the former iPlanet team will maintain some semblance of autonomy with regards to OS support for their software. Unfortunately, Sun marketing can't position them to gain mindshare against competing technologies, so the hope is fairly small (and I might add that the ONLY reason that iPlanet has any real non-Solaris support is because it's the Netscape Enterprise stuff).
No, Sun is not in a good position as Linux starts charging into it's space. It's already killed the small workstation market for them (mmmmm.... IPC), UNIX shops that were buying SPARC 20s in the mid 90s for IP services have mostly migrated to some "free" UNIX on x86, and now IBM is pushing big Linux iron (FYI, there was a point not too long ago when IBM Global sold more SPARC than Sun sales force.... interesting when viewing the ramifications of IBM's Linux Lovin'). I've made assumptions here about Linux being able to succeed in what's left in Sun's core space, but I'd imagine that by now IBM, Dell, and HPAQ have all realized that the sooner they are able to push x86 Linux into competition with Sun where they've reallly had little, the better. After all, to these guys, it's all about either volume (Dell) or services (IBM/HPAQ). Dell's a price point leader with good enough quality, and IBM/HPAQ realize that (at least in the "enterprise space" they both have big profitable niche's outside of where they compete with Sun and their services arm) their hardware/software efforts are simply the tools to sell more services, and if they can sell hardware/software profitably, good for those business units.
A Sun shareholder or fan can only hope that these mix ups bring about a new focus from within Sun - but frankly McNealy will have to turn the charging elephant, it'll take a heck of a turnaround with HUGE amounts of organizational change.
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
"Sun goes through executives faster than french pastries at a Weighwatcher's convention."
... funny?
Huh, a tired form of a joke that wanted to be said so the first company that came to mind was popped in. They still have the same CEO. Same chief scientist. Matter of fact, the top still looks a lot like it did just out of Stanford.
Don't let that stand in the way of being
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Printing $50,000 Solaris CD binders is a major source of profit for Sun, and they are not in a position to endanger any sources of profit right now.
Linux is already putting the big hurt on Solaris' server marketshare. Remember, unlike Microsoft, Sun is in the untenable position of competing _directly_ with a free product. Solaris X86 was a response to the nascent Linux threat (a dismal failure, as any closed source product was bound to be, even if it didn't suck goat ass to begin with). The disastrous reluctance to support Linux Java was another byproduct of Linux Paranoia at Sun.
But the Java issue clarified things a bit for the Sun people. They saw that trying to isolate and marginalize Linux would hurt Java, and then began to realize that it could hurt their whole company. They began to wonder if Linux's rise might be inexorable. Inevitable. That was when things started to change. The Cobalt acquisition, the Gnome support, the Open Office work... and of course the tier 1 Java support.
But when hard times come, people look at the P&L and they get the Fear. Bold, risky moves like moving towards Linux start to be questioned. You become desperate about the bottom line _right now_. I don't know if this is why DeWitt left or not, but I imagine what he represents could be feared inside Sun.
I expect cooler heads to prevail, eventually. Sun will continue to sell Solaris forever. But eventually, when the numbers finally work out, they will start offering "Sun Linux," hopefully with some useful "value adds," on progressively more expensive hardware, and as Solaris 3rd party development slows and Linux 3rd party development accellerates, Solaris will eventually be relegated to legacy status, and hopefully by then Sun will have emulated IBM's rise into the services sector.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Also lm@neteng.engr.sgi.com (Larry McVoy) wrote: :-) The main reasons that Linux is faster than commercial Unices:
OK, I think I can handle this. Tell your friend that I used to work at SunSoft, in the kernel group, I did posix, ufs clustering, the sun source mgmt system, started 100baseT, architected the cluster product line (from which came vlans which I invented), etc. I think my credentials are probably enough to impress a sys admin
* the system call entry is a better design. All Unix systems other than Linux use the design done by Bell Labs 20 years ago and the Linux design is simply lighter - it approaches a procedure call in cost. The complaint is always that Linux can't possibly be supporting all the features, such as restartable system calls, if it is that fast. Those claims turn out to be false - Linux supports the same features, including security, as any commercial Unix. It's just designed better. And commercial Unices are starting to pick up the ideas.
* Linux kernel hacks count instructions and cache misses and eliminate them. This is a biggy. When each "feature" is added into a kernel, people will do gross measurement to show that it made no difference. And each feature doesn't make a measurable difference - one or two more cache misses in a code path won't show up. But do that a 100 times and all the "features" taken together start to hurt. Linux is far ahead of the rest of the world, including NT, in that Linus and the other senior kernel folks do not kid themselves that a cache miss here and there doesn't matter. I frequently see the Linux development effort keep working at it until the feature they are working on can not go faster because it is running at hardware speeds - there is no more room for optimization. Contrast that with the commercial approach of "well, it didn't slow down for me" and you can start to see how things get out of hand. Kudos to Linus, David and Alan for being the smartest coders in this regard. I'd like to be that good.
* Linux is a redesign. Many ideas have been rethought using current thinking. All other Unix implementations (exceptions are things like QNX - which also performs at Linux like speeds and has also been shown to be posix/xpg4 etc compliant) are basically the same under the covers. It isn't surprising that fresh minds can do better - one would hope that we have learned something in 20 years
http://www.ultralinux.org/faq.html#q_1_15
Secondly, linux has a huge amount of momentum in the open source community. Arguably it is killing even the BSDs. It is doubtful that a newly opened OS could take away much of the mindshare at this point - the people working on linux have invested to much of themselves just to drop it.
I worked at Cobalt prior to the acquisition. I still work at Sun now, in the Cobalt group. SDW left on his 4 year anniversary with Cobalt, when all his options vested. No major mystery there. He's getting married and kicking back to enjoy his mega-bucks... all there is to it. Life at Sun (and Sun Cobalt) is progressing normally...
What if you took Red Hat Linux 7.2, removed the Linux kernel, and substituted the Solaris kernel?
On x86, you would immediately have 8-cpu scalability with no problem, with much greater efficiency than RH Advanced Server.
However, if you needed greater than 8-cpu scalability, porting Red Hat/Solaris to an e15k would give you a max of 106 cpus in a system architecture originally designed by Cray.
In other words, Sun could get control of the low end, provide a market-wide migration path to SPARC, and cut the throat of any high-end UNIX on Intel. They would instantly own the "Linux momentum."
They need to do it now. Right now.
This is retirement season at Sun. They tend to change things up and do re-orgs when their fiscal year rolls over in July. About this time, they need to stary announcing what these changes are going to be. This means that when Ed Zander tell Scott he'd like to retire sometime last year. Scott says, "sure, we'll let the world know end of April/early may." That's why these changes tend to come in bunches for Sun at this time of year.
The other big thing is that Sun does best when it has it's back to the wall. Look at it's history and time and time again, people have said Sun will be dead in 2 or 3 years. It has thusfar managed to reinvent itself. It's in that position now. It has changed it's look (purple is gone), is rebranding its product line and knows it needs to play well with Linux. That their Linux head is leaving might indicate either a frustration with Sun from him, or a new dedication to Linux from Sun. Sun might want to see more from that group. Or it might be folding it's Linux efforts in closer to the Solaris group.
Sun sees itself as having survived the nastiest downturn it has faced. It's letting people leave who wanted to leave a year and a half ago. It's also gearing up to reinvent itself and go kick butt. I think it's going to be fun to watch and see if they pull it off or not.