Sun Opens First Linux Competency Center

McGarnacle writes "Looks like our friends at Sun have opened the first Linux training centers at the headquarters of a Belleville, Ontario firm: beONix Technology. Now there's a worthwhile summer activity for the kids :)"

Comments

Internal Sun unrest

[popeydotcom]

I was chatting to a Sun employee the other day. He was telling me that a lot of developers at Sun are unhappy with the proliferation of Linux through their organisation.

The way I understand it, they aren't happy with the level of maturity in the Linux kernel *compared with the Solaris kernel*. He seemed to imply that the scalability in Linux wasn't as good, and felt Sun should be pushing Solaris more than Linux.

Don't take this as Linux bashing - I use it a lot at home and work, I just wondered if other developers felt similarly.

Re:Internal Sun unrest

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, I don't know who your source is. I'm a developer at Sun too and I can tell you we're more than happy about Linux. We see it as the dominant player in the future.

Re:Why Sun?

[squiggleslash]

They do, and it's Unix-like too. (Actually, it is Unix, but the point is that they have something in common.)

From Sun's point of view, they need diversity. They've always worked with various groups from Sony to Apple to the open source and free software communities to ensure that there isn't one single platform everyone uses. As long as there is diversity, Sun will be free to innovate.

The moment Giant Software Corp Inc takes over the entire industry and makes it impossible to produce computers that do not run its software, the game is over. Sun would have to choose between selling hardware of a spec defined by GSCI or throwing in the towel, and if it chooses the former it becomes yet another supplier of commodity boxes. Right now, GSCI is Microsoft, and choice means supporting, passively or pro-actively, platforms from GNU, Oracle, IBM, and a whole host of other so-called rivals, because there is a bigger threat to Sun if these disappear than if they continue to compete.

Sun, incidentally, are a pretty good software citizen. They've lead the trend creating open platforms, released the specs and source to things like OpenLook, NIS, NFS, OpenOffice.org, and others right from the get-go. I suspect they'd be more liberal with Solaris if it wasn't for the fact that other people own the copyrights to a lot of the code. Java is the exception, but then Sun knows how easy it would be for a GSCI to kill Java, and it wants to give it a chance. I'd be surprised if Java isn't freed within the next decade though.

Uh oh,,,

[gpinzone]

Would you let your kids hang around with a bunch of Linux admins for an entire summer? I think not!

Re:Uh oh,,,

[mark_lybarger]

yeah, i went to church camp in the summer when i was a youth. and from what i vaguely remember, i would much rather send my daughter to a linux admin summer camp than to church camp. sure she'll be out numbered, but the pale pasty caffiene slurping zombies will be too busy trying to get their fps as high as possible or see who's beowulf cluster can out-crunch the others to stop to ask her name let alone attempt anything we did while away at church camp!

Wrong directions

[Neil Watson]

Located about two hours north of Toronto

Bellville is two hours east of Toronto.

I think it's simple really

[fishlet]

I think Sun is starting to realize that Solaris is a dead end market share wise. This is no reflection on the quality of Solaris, just that the only major OS's to experience growth are Windows and Linux (and maybe OSX to a very small degree). Besides, companies like the idea of standardizing on a platform. For many that choice is Microsoft. If they don't like Micro$oft, then maybe they'll go with something else. But they probably wont go with three different things... for example Linux, Solaris, and AIX. So a smart company will give the customer what it wants- the ability to use standardize on a platform of choice.