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Sun Introduces Subscription Solaris
cyberlync writes "Sun is planning to implement a pricing policy similar to Microsoft's recent subscription pricing plan. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president of software, said that they are calling this project Orion. It looks like another attempt to grab more cash in this nasty economy to me. Schwartz said that they are going to try a similar senario with linux soon as well. On a side note, it mentions some interesting things about a new desktop distro of linux."
Migration Guide Part I
Unlike Linux which uses the GPL license, the BSD family uses the BSD-style license. To summarize the differences between the two licenses in one sentence, the GPL requires any changes to the source code to be made public and be licensed under the GPL as well. The BSD license has no such requirement, any changes can be kept proprietary.
There are several major differences in the way FreeBSD and the major Linux distributions work. This article will step you through what I consider to be the biggest 'gotchas' that I encountered when switching my desktop from Linux to FreeBSD.
Although there are people who will argue this point, the term Linux refers to the kernel, nothing more. The applications that you use everyday on your Red Hat or Debian box are utilities added on by the respective distributions. FreeBSD on the other hand refers to the OS as a whole. FreeBSD is itself the kernel, as well as the basic applications needed to use a computer, such as the copy and move commands. This difference results in there being several distributions of Linux, such as Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and Slackware. Anyone who has used both Mandrake and Debian can tell you that there is a world of difference between them. There is only one FreeBSD. My FreeBSD is the same as the FreeBSD that you have -- except for differences between versions FreeBSD is FreeBSD.
Three of the biggest Linux distributions, Red Hat, Mandrake, and SuSE use the RPM package manager. RPM handles installing, upgrading, uninstalling, and dependency checking for programs installed on those OSes. Although it does check for dependency errors before installing a program, RPM does leave a lot to be desired. For example, it cannot fetch other RPMs that are needed to solve the dependency errors. I know of are least 3 projects that solve this, urpmi, Debian's apt-get which by the way isn't remotely related to RPM and is a 'Debian only' feature, and a hybrid between RPM and apt-get. So unless you are willing to use one of the methods stated above, you have to manually find and download the required RPMs. Sound easy? Well it does until you try to manually install gnome or upgrade XFree from RPM's. Even after you find the correct RPMs, if they are for SuSE and you're running Red Hat, chances are they still might not work.
Each distribution of Linux is slightly different, and where they differ the most is in the file system layout. I'm sure that most everyone has heard about SuSE putting KDE in
FreeBSD uses what are known as "packages" to install, uninstall and upgrade applications. The 'pkg_add' command is used to install a package that you have manually downloaded to your computer. You can also run it with the '-r' flag followed by a package name, and it will remotely fetch it from the Internet, as well as anything it requires to run. But the real beauty of FreeBSD's packages is in the ports tree. The ports tree is simply that -- a hierarchy of applications that have been ported to FreeBSD. Each directory contains a Makefile and any patches that are required for that particular app to compile and run on FreeBSD. For example, if I want to install the Apache web server, all I have to do is cd into the
Another difference between Linux and FreeBSD, is that with FreeBSD, 99% of what you install via ports or packages defaults into
Migration Guide Part II
The FreeBSD system uses a program known as cvsup to keep itself up-to-date. Once you create a 'sup-file', cvsup compares what is locally on your system, and what is on the cvsup server and downloads any file that has changed since the last time it was run. You can use it to keep your ports tree and your local copy of the FreeBSD source code current and up-to-date. Unlike Linux, which normally only the kernel is downloaded and compiled on a semi-regularly basis, you can easily download the source for the entire OS using cvsup. The main reason for doing this is that it makes updating FreeBSD from one version to the next extraordinary simple. After cvsup'ing the newest source, you compile a new kernel, then you compile the 'rest' of the OS using one simple command: 'make buildworld'. you then drop into single user mode and install it with 'make installworld'. It's just that easy.
The way that partitions are handled is also very different. Linux sees a hard drive as being divided up into different partitions. Of those partitions, some of them can have logical partitions inside of them. What we commonly think of as 'partitions', FreeBSD sees as slices. Within each slice are one or more 'BSD partitions'. These BSD partitions are what shows up in the
Perhaps the next biggest difference between Linux and FreeBSD is the philosophy behind how the OSes are designed. Linux tends to have newer features and drivers (such as the closed source nVidia graphics card drivers) well before FreeBSD. The FreeBSD developers have taken a much more conservative approach to things. They prefer tried and tested code over flashy new features, preferring to wait until the major bugs have been worked out. For FreeBSD on the desktop this can be a problem if you want the latest and greatest drivers or the newest *cool* new feature. But in the server room, you want tried and tested code. Besides, how many of you put a $200 video card on your headless server?
Another difference is in what is installed by default. If you go with the default install options in SuSE, you'll wind up with at least a gigabyte of installed software. FreeBSD on the other hand, installs just the basics. (Please note: I know that you can tell SuSE to only install the 'basics', but notice that I am talking about the 'default' install.) It gives you only the essentials, which you can use to install any of the 4000 applications in the ports tree. Almost all of the programs that run on Linux are already ported and running on FreeBSD, the only difference is that with Linux they are either installed by default, or unless you use Debian you have to go manually download them. With FreeBSD they are optional, and it is for the most part automated. Another difference in terms of what gets installed is that in Linux, the default shell is bash, however in FreeBSD it is tcsh.
For commercial programs such as Oracle or HP Openmail, FreeBSD offers a "Linux compatibility" layer. In simple terms this layer allows FreeBSD to run Linux binaries at almost native speed. Depending on the application it can run at full native speed under FreeBSD, just as it would under "Linux". This compatibility layer is a step above emulation. The required Linux libraries are installed on the BSD system in binary form. When you try to run the Linux application, FreeBSD realizes that it is a Linux binary and simply points it to the Linux libraries that it depends on. There is also support for emulating commercial BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and SCO binaries. Each respective OS is in different stages of support, with the best support for commercial BSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
Although the BSD developers are more concerned with quality than quantity, that doesn't mean that FreeBSD is lacking in features. FreeBSD 5.0, due in Novemeber of 2002 will feature fine grained process control, which will enable it to scale effectively up to 32 processors. Version 5.0 will also feature a full DEVDFS device filesystem. Although this has been available in Linux for quite a while, you don't hear much about it. It basically allows for the dev file system to be dynamically changed. For example, if you add a USB keyboard, it would 'magically' be added to the
Throughout the big dotcom boom of '98-'99 Linux was THE buzzword. Computer users everywhere were hearing about a *free* operating system that was challenging Microsoft in the server room as well as the desktop. Even today, the userbase of Linux is growing strongly. However most people are just beginning to hear about FreeBSD. Hopefully this article will help you evaluate FreeBSD as a possible solution to your needs. In the end, if you don't want to be gay - choose FreeBSD.
Troll 75 of 208 from the annals of the Troll Library .
g to the oat and c to tha see. I gotz an F, P!
as I am God!
Sun implementing Microsoft ideas?
Orion -> Onion?
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
It looks like another attempt to grab more cash in this nasty economy to me.
I hate it when companies try to make money. Employees, electricity and phone service should all be GPL. they could maybe get office furniture off of kazaa.
damn economy.
in soviet russia software is free as in beer !
1) subscription for linux copies from sub ...
2)
3) profit!
Okay, so Sun will have profit. Will they put more effort into Linux or will they try to increase profit by minimizing costs (volunteers are so cheap...)?
The GPL gets YOU off of Kazaa!!!
I guess Sun found a way to circumvent this evil Microsoft plot.
:(
Looks like I lost my excuse for being so pasty
Posting as directed.
For some people this will be a good option and everyone looking at Solaris/SunONE licensing should have a looksee and work out which option is better for them.
In a lot of ways, Sun is the MS of the commercial UNIX world, but they have an impressive record of making contributions to the community. the most notable contribution was probably NFS, and Sun gave it away long before most of us had ever heard of the GPL. Solaris has lots of goodies in it, obviously including great NFS support, but also pleasant standardisation and maturity, which Linux still somewhat lacks. Solaris is also rock solid. Sure, Linux can have multi-year uptimes, but it doesn't really compare to Solaris. When you want to run a giant website with 100's of CPU's, you turn to Solaris, and you don't even care that you get raped on the price of the hardware.
I imagine that Sun is doing this because they know they won't make any money pushing beige box PC's. (SGI sure didn't.) By just selling the OS, they may not sell a ton of copies, but the profit margins on software are pretty sweet, if you can pay off the cost of development.
OK, party-liners... pay attention. When next posting (or should I say reposting something you read in the previous dupe's comments) - remember you cannot simply say Sun's business model is centered around hardware.
No doubt they have got many customers with sizeable investments developed on Sun technology, and I suppose Sun wouldn't make such hard terms as Microsoft did, but nevertheless, you can only price your way when it's a sellers market, or a really captive one. If not, your are dead meat. None of those situations currently apply. Just think it again, Sun.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
...Sun won't be around much longer.
We're moving our servers to Linux as it is, so a move like this is hardly going to make us think twice about it.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I don't like this move to subscription that has become popular. Macromedia also is trying to do it.
It's great for the provider - over time it makes you a lot more money, and you get a more regular cash flow. And it eases the pressure to come up with major releases. You can just make minor improvements regularly to justify the charge. Fixing bugs and security holes should not be considered a service - it is repairing a faulty product.
So as a provider, it's great. But as a customer, it's not so good - stuff basically ends up being more expensive, and you get locked in to one provider.
I think it is a development that needs to be resisted. Profit margins are far too high on a lot of software anyway. This kind of move just makes OSS solutions even more attractive.
It seems software amd hardware companies are nostalgic for the good ole days when a server or desktop had a service life of about 1.5 to 2 years due to obsolence which was in effect similar to a subscription.
Now the pace of change has slowed down and so has need to buy new systems. Companies like MS and Sun are trying maintain and expand revenue without offering any compelling reason to upgrade. So they are now "innovating" with pricing.
Remember, they are a company responsible to shareholders. Sun is tanking, the economy is tanking - what is Sun supposed to do? This shouldn't be a blame game but a step back to evaluate what Sun is doing and why they are doing it (to post a profit not a loss for starters).
We buy solars subscriptions for our low end x1 style sun boxes already. Its sold as hardware support without the hardware support but we get access to the current releases.
What I would like is a subscript deal where we get a copy of the current version (what ever it is and with all the patches applied) when its shipped. I only want the install cd, I don't need the other cd's they like shipping out. Right now it costs me about $100 to download a cd at current rates and it it shouldn't cost Sun Australia more than about $20 to send a real CD to me. I only need one media subscription so this is different than the license issue.
OK, so I can move to Sun's version of Linux and put up with their methodologies, or just move to a different kind of Linux.
I honestly don't see Sun's strategy as being particuarly sound, unless they think they can leverage their name and reputation against Microsoft.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Sun's really got to rethink the way it does business, i think. there's an interesting article at NYT on the topic. There was something in there (that I can't find now to save my life) about how Sun was going to do subscription-style pricing, but at a rate more competitive than Microsoft.
;)
There's also interesting discussion in there and here about the company's dependence on proprietary, expensive hardware in today's world of home 192-node beowulf clusters.
Sun has always provided the OS for free on lower-end systems, and charged on the high-end based on the number of CPUs. All the other high-end system manufacturers do this, except for the free part.
.. I wish MS would follow this model.</rant>
Now that Sun is offering Linux, they will need a way to break out the costs, so that customers that prefer Linux might be offered a price break over customers that prefer Solaris for specific tasks. For instance, webservers and app servers might see no real need for any additional costs for Solaris, but a 75 CPU database server might want the additional features.
This method also provides the capability of pricing support appropriatly. I know, you MS people might not be familiar with this concept, but Sun has been providing support for their OS for years, and not charging by the hour when you call with a problem. Sun bundles OS and hardware support into one number for low end systems. Again, by breaking the pricing out, different support costs can be offered for the different OSes.
Sun support has always provided, cumulative patch sets that can often be applied without reboots. <rant>I built a W2K box yesterday and had to boot over 7 times after the initial install of the OS as I applied various patches. It took me most of the morning to get all the patches installed. I pay for this support so that I can call up a technician that has the resources available to answer my questions. Sheesh
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
With the MH project Sun is looking to replace MS on the desktop! WTF!! They are putting themselves directly in the line of fire with Big Bill! Are they nuts?!?
Hmmm...OTOH, maybe they could do what MS has done with the server/desktop line - only with more reliablity and less cost. Imagine a server that can be scaled to nearly infinite (128 CPUs anyone?) levels and never goes down! Then put a Linux desktop in front of it running lots of GPL stuff (to keep the costs down) and built-in Java.
And, as another poster put it, Sun has been giving back to the community for a very long time (i.e. NFS). Maybe this could work. I would love to not have to worry about my servers all the time ("Did it reboot overnight!?!") and get on with creating business solutions for my employer.
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
yes sun might just do what redhat are doing
subscriptions for automatic updates and security patchs
well never
best of luck to them if it funds solaris all credit to them
regards
John Jones
I can't light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I'm growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life
Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light
Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me
I can't find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal
Since I can think I wondered why software is treated so differently than other products. It would make sense to forbid this by law.
For basically the same thing, e. g. WinNT Workstation and Server, which differ in 3 reg keys, they charge different prices, and it's said to be illegal to change this three keys. This would be the same if a car manufacturer would forbid you tuning your car!
Also this license crap (fortunately here in Germany they don't apply with standard software), nobody would accept any license bullshit when buying a car that would e. g. limit the persons in the car to two (in comparison to "1-2 cpu only"), but for software, nobody seems to care.
Kosi
Sun plans to deliver a Microsoft-compatible, Linux-based desktop by summer
Does this mean it will be able to run windows software, and do it well? If so is it based on wine? If it is, will it be the LGPL version or a BSD style licensed one?
Lots of questions, probably no one knows the answers, but I'm interested.
JC
beware the Godless evile fraudulent felons whoAre peddling payper liesenses so as to bullow more smoke up yOUR .asps.
.asp to whoAre the REAL .commIEs et AL.
whois yOUR daddIE?
lookout bullow.
almost everything's gnu now. many are yet unable to feel the refeshing sense of freedom provided by the good gnus, because the 'mainstream' (soon to be DOWnstream) media hasn't mentioned it, YET.
omissions like that, along with the other phonIE scriptdead ?pr? 'news', leave many of US, a little peaced off, AGAIN.
many of US J.'s, again, of course, as usual, are doing an EXCELLENT job of voting with yOUR wallets.
carry on. all you need is love (etc...), da da da da da.
for a few chuckles (hard to come buy these daze?), visit trustworthycomputing.com, to find doubt
the revenge of elmer fudd is upon the ill eagle kingdumb of softwar gangsters.
You see, if you think about it for a minute, it's actually VERY funny. Sadly, someone has -1ed it already, so I guess it will never see the light of day.
1) identify need for tool
-- reliable hardware/os/software
2) create tool - utilize feedback from 'Net
-- sun gear, solaris, sunONE, linux, sendmail...
3) distribute tool - the more users the better
-- hardware costs quite a bit however, 20$ for distribution is OK by me. free sendmail download works for me. same for linux
4) provide OPTIONAL contracted services - support, customization, extension, integration
-- businesses need a way to guarantee their problems will be fixed and their special needs met, all in a time frame that does not impact their business. Your TOOL is not their business. Much as making a mitre saw is not part of a master craftsman's business. Some shops want a company to "own" the product they use. They need to shift the liability so they can concentrate on their business. That is why sendmail.com, redhat.com, etc. work
5) profit
-- business will pay premium for said services if they fulfil their need. Thus funding further R&D
Sun, sendmail.com, redhat... I know there are others out there that are giving away the "product" because their business is in the services - support, customization, extension, integration.
Look at the game console space.
The money is in the software not the hardware.
people are going to buy one console, and a handful of peripherals. They are then going to load up on the software.
It therefor makes more business sense for a company to give away the console (sell at cost) while building up a services group to provide the software, suport, and extensions to the original console.
First ID the need and fill it. The rest will follow.
Do not go the MS way and try to make all your cash up front OR make licensing the "tool" prohibitively expensive or illegal.
Encourage people to think of more ways to use your tool. The Internet was developed as a way to get noise data from atlantic to pacific. It was "released" to the public to help it grow faster.
Build it and if it fits a broad enough niche it will grow. As people invent new ways to use your "tool" the tool will begin to self evolve.
The more you give, the more the users will give back.
comment directly in my journal
companies will do what they have to do to make money, that's just the way things are
in the meantime I'll be using FreeBSD...
Check out the guy's presentation:
Jonathan Schwartz presentation
Page 23:
All software will move to one distribution, and three licensing models - Traditional, Predictable and Metered
So comparing what Sun plans to what Microsoft has already done is rubbish.
Sixty years ago,I worked in what was once my Grandfather's Greenhouses. Gramps had died a year earlier and Grandma, now in her seventies had been forced to sell to the competition. I got a job with the new owners and mostly worked the range by myself. That summer, they hired a man to help me get the benches ready for the fall planting.
Ike always looked like he was three days from a shave and his whiskers were dirty white, shaded by the brim of his battered felt fedora.
He did not chew tobacco but the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that, at any moment, I expected a trickle of thin, brown juice to creep down his chin. His bushy, brown eyebrows shaded pale, gray eyes.
Old Ike, he extended his hand, lifted his leg like a dog about to mark a bush and let go the loudest fart I ever heard. The old man winked at me, "Ike Thomas is the name and playing pecker's my game."
I thought he said, "Checkers." I was nineteen, green as grass. I said, "I was never much good at that game."
"Now me," said Ike, "I just love jumping men . . ."
"I'll bet you do."
". . . and grabbing on to their peckers," said Ike.
"I though we were talking about . . ."
"You like jumping old men's peckers?"
I shook my head.
"I reckon we'll have to remedy that." Ike lifted his right leg and let go another tremendous fart. "He said, "We best be getting to work."
That summer of 1941 was a more innocent time. I learned most of the sex I knew from those little eight pager cartoon booklets of comic-page characters going at it. Young men read them in the privacy of an outside john, played with themselves, by themselves and didn't brag about it. Sometimes, we got off with a trusted friend and helped each other out.
Under the greenhouse glass, the temperature some times climbed over the hundred degree mark. I had worked stripped to the waist since April and was as brown as a berry. On only his second day on the job and in the middle of August, Ike wore old fashioned overalls. Those and socks in his high-top work shoes was every stitch he wore. When he bent forward, the bib front billowed out and I could see the white curly hairs on his chest and belly.
"Me? I just love to eat pussy!" Ike licked his lips from corner to corner then sticking his tongue out far enough that the tip could touch the end of his nose. He said, A man's not a man till he knows first hand, the flavor of a lady's pussy."
"People do that?"
He winked. "Of course the taste of a hard cock ain't to be sneezed at neither. Now you answer me, yes or no. Does a man's cock taste salty or not?"
"I never . . ."
"Well, old Ike's willing to let you find out."
"No way."
"Just teasing," said Ike. "But don't give me no sass or I'll show you my ass." He winked. "Might show it to you anyway, if you was to ask."
"Why would I do that?"
"Curiosity, maybe. I'm guessing you never had a good piece of man ass."
"I'm no queer."
"Now don't be getting judgmental. Enjoying what's at hand ain't being queer. It's taking pleasure where you find it with anybody willing." Ike slipped a hand into the side slit of his overalls and I could tell he was fondling and straightening out his cock. "Now I admit I got me a hole that satisfied a few guys."
I swallowed, hard.
Ike winked. "Care to be asshole buddies?"
***
We worked steadily until noon. Ike drew a worn pocket watch from the bib pocket of his loose overalls and croaked, "Bean time. But first its time to reel out our limber hoses and make with the golden arches before lunch."
I followed Ike to the end of the greenhouse where he stopped at the outside wall of the potting shed. He opened his fly, fished inside, and finger-hooked a soft white penis with a pouting foreskin puckered half an inch past the hidden head.
"Yes sir," breathed Ike, "this old peter needs some draining." He exhaled a sigh as a strong, yellow stream splattered against the boards and ran down to soak into the earthen floor.
He caught me looking down at him. He winked. "Like what you're viewing, Boy?"
I looked away.
"You taking a serious interest in old Ike's pecker?"
I shook my head.
"Well you just haul out yourn and let old Ike return the compliment."
Feeling trapped and really having to go, I fumbled at my fly, turned away slightly, withdrew my penis and strained to start.
"Take your time boy. Let it all hang out. Old Ike's the first to admit that he likes looking at another man's pecker." He flicked away the last drop of urine and shook his limp penis vigorously.
I tried not to look interested.
"Yes sir, this old peepee feels so good out, I just might leave it out." He turned to give me a better view.
"What if somebody walks in?"
Ike shrugged. He looked at my strong yellow stream beating against the boards and moved a step closer. "You got a nice one,boy."
I glanced over at him. His cock was definitely larger and beginning to stick straight out. I nodded toward his crotch. "Don't you think you should put that away?"
"I got me strictly a parlor prick," said Ike. "Barely measures six inches." He grinned. "Of course it's big enough around to make a mouthful." He ran a thumb and forefinger along its length and drawing his foreskin back enough to expose the tip of the pink head. "Yersiree." He grinned, revealing nicotine stained teeth. "It sure feels good, letting the old boy breathe."
I knew I should button up and move away. I watched his fingers moving up and down the thickening column.
"You like checking out this old man's cock?"
I nodded. In spite of myself, my cock began to swell.
"Maybe we should have ourselves a little pecker pulling party." Ike slid his fingers back and forth on his expanding shaft and winked. "I may be old but I'm not against doing some little pud pulling with a friend."
I shook my head.
"Maybe I'll give my balls some air. Would you like a viewing of old Ike's hairy balls?"
I swallowed hard and moistened my dry lips.
He opened another button on his fly and pulled out his scrotum. "Good God, It feels good to set 'em free. Now let's see yours."
"Why?"
"Just to show you're neighborly," said Ike.
"I don't think so." I buttoned up and moved into the potting shed.
Ike followed, his cock and balls protruding from the front of his overalls. "Overlook my informality." Ike grinned. "As you can see I ain't bashful."
I nodded and took my sandwich from the brown paper bag.
"Yessir," said Ike. "I just might have to have myself an old fashioned peter pulling all by my lonesome. He unhooked a shoulder strap and let his overalls drop around his ankles.
I took a bite of my sandwich but my eyes remained on Ike.
"Yessiree," said Ike, "I got a good one if I do say so myself. Gets nearly as hard as when I was eighteen. You know why?"
I shook my head.
"Cause I keep exercising him. When I was younger I was pulling on it three time a day. Still like to do him every day I can."
"Some say you'll go blind if you do that too much."
"Bull-loney!" Don't you believe that shit. I been pulling my pud for close to fifty years and I didn't start till I was fifteen."
I laughed.
"You laughing at my little peter, boy?"
"Your hat." I pointed to the soiled, brown fedora cocked on his head. That and his overalls draped about his ankles were his only items of apparel. In between was a chest full of gray curly hair, two hairy legs. Smack between them stood an erect, pale white cock with a tip of foreskin still hiding the head.
"I am one hairy S.O.B.," said Ike.
"I laughed at you wearing nothing but a hat."
"Covers up my bald spot," said Ike. "I got more hair on my ass than I got on my head. Want to see?"
"Your head?"
"No, Boy, my hairy ass and around my tight, brown asshole." He turned, reached back with both hands and parted his ass cheeks to reveal the small, puckered opening. "There it is, Boy, the entrance lots of good feelings. Tell me, Boy, how would you like to put it up old Ike's ass?"
"I don't think so."
"That'd be the best damned piece you ever got."
"We shouldn't be talking like this."
"C'mon now, confess, don't this make your cock perk up a little bit?"
"I reckon," I confessed.
"You ever seen an old man's hard cock before," asked Ike.
"My grandpa's when I was twelve or thirteen."
"How'd that come about?"
He was out in the barn and didn't know I was around. He dropped his pants. It was real big he did things to it. He saw me and he turned around real fast but I saw it."
"What did your grandpa do?"
"He said I shouldn't be watching him doing that. He said something like grandma wouldn't give him some,' that morning and that I should get out of there and leave a poor man in peace to do what he had to do."
"Did you want to join him."
"I might have if he'd asked. He didn't."
"I like showing off my cock," said Ike. "A hard-on is something I always been proud of. A hard-on proves a man's a man. Makes me feel like a man that can do things." He looked up at me and winked. "You getting a hard-on from all this talk, son?"
I nodded and looked away.
"Then maybe you should pull it out and show old Ike what you got."
"We shouldn't."
"Hey. A man's not a man till he jacked off with a buddy."
I wanted to but I was as nervous as hell.
Ike grinned and fingered his pecker. "C'mon, Boy, between friends, a little cock showing is perfectly fine. Lets see what you got in the cock and balls department."
In spite of my reluctance, I felt the stirring in my crotch. I had curiosity that needed satisfying. It had been a long, long time since I had walked in on my grandfather .
"C'mon let's see it all."
I shook my head.
"You can join the party anytime, said Ike. "Just drop your pants and pump away."
I had the urge. There was a tingling in my crotch. My cock was definitely willing and I had a terrible need to adjust myself down there. But my timidity and the strangeness of it all held me back.
Hope you don't mind if I play out this hand." Ike grinned. "It feels like I got a winner."
I stared at his gnarled hand sliding up and down that pale, white column and I could not look away. I wet my lips and shook my head.
Old Ike's about to spout a geyser." Ike breathed harder as he winked. "Now if I just had a long finger up my ass. You interested, boy?"
I shook my head.
The first, translucent, white glob crested the top of his cock and and arced to the dirt floor. Ike held his cock at the base with thumb and forefinger and tightened noticeably with each throb of ejaculation until he was finished.
I could not believe any man could do what he had done in front of another human being.
Ike sighed with pleasure and licked his fingers. "A man ain't a man till he's tasted his own juices."
He squatted, turned on the faucet and picked up the connected hose. He directed the water between his legs and on to his still dripping prick and milked the few remaining drops of white, sticky stuff into the puddle forming at his feet. "Cool water sure feels good on a cock that just shot its wad," said Ike.
***
"Cock-tale telling time," said Old Ike. It was the next day and he rubbed the front of his dirty,worn overalls where his bulge made the fly expand as his fingers smoothed the denim around the outline of his expanding cock.
I wasn't sure what he had in mind but I knew it wasn't something my straight-laced Grandma would approve of.
"Don't you like taking your cock out and jacking it?" Ike licked his lips.
I shook my head in denial.
"Sure you do. A young man in his prime has got to be pulling his pud."
I stared at his calloused hand moving over the growing bulge at his crotch.
"Like I said," continued Ike, "I got me barely six inches when he's standing up." He winked at me. "How much you got, son?"
"Almost seven inches . . ." I stuttered. "Last
time I measured."
"And I'm betting it feels real good with your fist wrapped around it."
"I don't do . . ."
"Everybody does it." He scratched his balls and said,"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Then, looking me in the eye, he lifted his leg like a dog at a tree and let out a long, noisy fart.
Denying that I jacked off, I said, "I saw yours yesterday."
"A man has got to take out his pecker every once in a while." He winked and his fingers played with a button on his fly. Care to join me today?"
"I don't think so."
"What's the matter, boy? You ashamed of what's hanging 'tween your skinny legs?"
"It's not for showing off."
"That would be so with a crowd of strangers but with a friend, in a friendly showdown, where's the harm?
"It shouldn't be shown to other people. My Grandma said that a long time ago when I went to the bathroom against a tree when I was seven.
"There's nothing like a joint pulling among friends to seal a friendship," said Ike.
I don't think so." I felt very much, ill at ease.
"Then what the fuck is it for," demanded the old man. "A good man shares his cock with his friends. How old are you boy?"
"Nineteen almost twenty."
You ever fucked a woman?"
"No."
"Ever fucked a man?"
"Of course not.
"Son, you ain't never lived till you've fired your load up a man's tight ass."
"I didn't know men did that to each other."
"Men shove it up men's asses men all the time. They just don't talk about it like they do pussy."
"You've done that?"
"I admit this old pecker's been up a few manholes. More than a few hard cocks have shagged this old ass over the years." He shook his head, wistfully, "I still have a hankering for a hard one up the old dirt chute."
"I think that would hurt."
"First time, it usually does," agreed Ike. He took a bite from his sandwich.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes of our lunch hour had already passed.
"We got time for a quickie," said Ike. "There's no one around to say, stop, if were enjoying ourselves."
He unhooked the slide off the button of one shoulder-strap, pushed the bib of his overalls down to let them fall to his feet.
"Showtime," said Ike. Between his legs, white and hairy, his semi-hard cock emerged from a tangled mass of brown and gray pubic hair. The foreskin, still puckered beyond the head of the cock, extended downward forty-five degrees from the horizontal but was definitely on the rise.
I could only stare at the man. Until the day before, I had never seen an older man with an erection besides my grandpa.
Ike moved his fingers along the stalk of his manhood until the head partially emerged, purplish and broad. He removed his hand for a moment and it bobbled obscenely in the subdued light of the potting shed. Ike leaned back against a bin of clay pots like a model on display. "Like I said, boy, it gets the job done."
I found it difficult not to watch. "You shouldn't . . ."
"C'mon, boy. Show Ike your pecker. I'm betting it's nice and hard."
I grasped my belt and tugged on the open end. I slipped the waistband button and two more before pushing down my blue jeans and shorts down in one move. My cock bounced and slapped my belly as I straightened."
"That's a beaut." Ike stroked his pale, white cock with the purplish-pink head shining. "I'm betting it'll grow some more if you stroke it."
"We really shouldn't . . ."
"Now don't tell me you never stroked your hard peter with a buddy."
"I've done that," I finally admitted,. "But he was the same age as me and it was a long time ago." I though back to the last time Chuck and me jerked each other off in the loft of our old barn. Chuck wanted more as a going away present and we had sucked each other's dicks a little bit.
"Jackin's always better when you do it with somebody," said Ike. "Then you can lend each other a helping hand."
"I don't know about that," I said.
Ike's hand continued moving on his old cock as he leaned over to inspect mine. "God Damn! Boy. That cock looks good enough to eat." Ike licked his lips. "You ever had that baby sucked?"
I shook my head as I watched the old man stroke his hard, pale cock.
"Well boy, I'd say you're packing a real mouthful for some lucky gal or guy." He grinned. "Well c'mon. Let's see you get down to some serious jacking. Old Ike's way ahead of you."
I wrapped my fist around my stiff cock and moved the foreskin up and over the head on the up stroke. On the down stroke the expanded corona of the angry, purple head stared obscenely at the naked old man.
Ike toyed with his modest six inches. "What do you think of this old man's cock?" His fist rode down to his balls and a cockhead smaller than the barrel stared back at mine.
"I guess I'm thinking this is like doing it with my grandpa."
"You ever wish you could a done this with your grandpa?"
"I thought about it a lot."
"Ever see him with a hard-on."
"I told you about that!"
"Ever think about him doing your grandma?"
"I can't imagine her ever doing anything with a man.
"Take my word for it, sonny, we know she did it or you wouldn't be here." Begrudgingly I nodded in agreement.
"Everybody fucks," said old Ike. "They fuck or they jack off."
"If you say so."
"Say sonny, your cocks getting real juicy with slickum. Want old Ike to lick some of it away?"
"You wouldn't."
Ike licked his lips as he kept his hand pistoning up and down his hard cock. "You might be surprised what old Ike might do if he was in the mood for a taste of what comes out of a hard cock."
And that is what he proceeded to do. He sucked me dry.
Then he erupted in half-a-dozen spurts shooting out and onto the dirt floor of the potting shed. He gave his cock a flip and shucked t back into his overalls. He unwrapped a sandwich from its wax paper and proceed to eat without washing his hands. He took a bite and chewed. "Nothing like it boy, a good jacking clears the cobwebs from your crotch and gives a man an appetite."
***
The following day, We skipped the preliminaries. We dropped our pants. Ike got down on his knees and sucked me until I was hard and good and wet before he stood and turned.
"C'mon boy, Shove that pretty cock up old Ike's tight, brown hole and massage old Ike's prostate.
Ike bent forward and gripped the edge of the potting bench. The lean, white cheeked buttocks parted slightly and exposed the dark brown, crinkly, puckered star of his asshole "Now you go slow and ease it along until you've got it all the way in," he cautioned. "This old ass craves your young cock but it don't want too much too soon. You've got to let this old hole stretch to accommodate you."
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Easy boy, easy," he cautioned. "You feel a lot bigger than you look. Put a little more spit in your cock."
"It's awfully tight. I don't know if it's going to go or not."
"It'll go," said Ike. "There's been bigger boys than you up the old shit chute."
I slipped in the the last few inches.. "It's all in."
"I can tell," said Ike. "Your cock hairs are tickling my ass."
"Are you ready," I asked.
"How are you liking old Ike's hairy asshole so far?"
"It's real tight."
"Tighter than your fist?"
"Might be."
"Ready to throw a fuck into a man that reminds you of your grandpa."
"I reckon."
"I want you should do old Ike one more favor."
"What?"
While you're pumpin' my ass, would you reach around and play with my dick like you would your own? Would you do that for an old man?"
I reached around and took hold of his hard cock sticking out straight in front of him. I pilled the skin back and then pulled it up and over the expanded glans. I felt my own cock expand inside him as I manipulated his staff in my fingers. I imagined that my cock extended through him and I was playing with what came out the other side of him.
"C'mon, boy, ram that big cock up the old shitter and make me know it. God Damn! tickle that old prostate and make old Ike come!"
I came. And I came. Ike's tightened up on my cock and I throbbed Roman Candle bursts into that brown hole as I pressed into him. His hairy, scrawny ass flattened against my crotch and we were joined as tightly as two humans can be.
"A man's not a man till he's cum in another man." said old Ike. "You made it, boy. But still, a man's not a man till he's had a hard cock poked up his ass at least once."
Every time I think of that scene, I get another hard-on. Then I remember the next day when old Ike returned the favor.
I never have managed to come that hard again. If only Ike were here.
You can buy non-subscription from Microsoft too. It just costs more. I'm sure the same is true of Sun.
coming out of yOUR .asp.
The United States of America saw protests from coast to coast in over 100 cities nationwide. New York City was paralyzed by over a million marchers. San Francisco was taken over by well over 200,000 protesters, and Los Angeles saw over 100,000 people take to the streets. Thousands upon thousands joined them in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and Seattle.
This was a gathering of ordinary citizens who came together in the streets of the world in an organized event that has no precedent in all of human history. They were brought together by a global word-of-mouth activism rooted entirely in the Internet. Were it not for this planetary connection, no such coordination could have ever taken place. Once upon a time, the world wide web was a realm dominated by dreams of profit and marketing. Those dreams have soured, leaving behind a marvelous network now utilized by very average people who can, with the click of a button, bring forth from all points on the compass a roaring deluge of humanity to stand against craven injustice and ruinous war.
The weekend of February 15th saw this force ram headlong into the will of men who walk in shadow, whose hands wield lightning and steel, pestilence and famine. In their ranks stand Presidents, Prime Ministers, corporate magnates, untouchable billionaires, and the advisors who whisper to them of empire and domination. They are few in number, but life and death flows from their fingertips in freshets and gouts. These men control the armies and navies of great nations, nuclear and chemical nightmares beyond measure, unassailable technological weapons and walls, the financial cords which hold the package together, the water, the air, the oil, the law, and a global media machine by which they can obscure their designs with pleasing lies.
No mere citizen could do what these men in one moment can do with the crooking of a little finger. With a word, they can erase cities, deprive an entire populace of water and light, unleash disease and famine, annihilate the economies of dozens of nations, and imprison forever anyone who dares dissent. These men bleed, they sicken, they die, but in their time of life they can punch holes in the sky large enough to make Zeus wince with envy. Like the millions who marched, the gathering of such fearful powers into the hands of so few is also without precedent in all of human history.
There was, among the millions who stormed the planet last weekend, a misconception that masked the true reason for their presence in the streets. A great many people believe this looming war with Iraq is about old grudges and oil. There is logic in this; Iraq has the second largest proven stores of precious petroleum in the world, and there is a definite history of malice between House Bush and House Hussein. The truth of the matter is far more broad and deep, belittling all talk of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and even oil. The men who pursue their goals by way of this war have a great many desires on their minds, and once more, they have the will to attain these goals by whatever means is required.
Were the protesters fully aware of whom they faced, a good many of them may well have fled in terror to cower in their homes. One does not lightly bait a bear with such terrible claws.
Does this all sound like some paranoid fantasy? If so, allow me to introduce The Project for the New American Century.
The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana.
The fundamental essence of PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper produced in September of 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines what is required of America to create the global empire they envision. According to PNAC, America must:
* Reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East;
* Modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft, submarine and surface fleet capabilities;
* Develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a strategic dominance of space;
* Control the "International Commons" of cyberspace;
* Increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent currently spent.
Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the American military. The two central requirements are for American forces to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want America to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see.
Why is this important? After all, wacky think tanks are a cottage industry in Washington, DC. They are a dime a dozen. In what way does PNAC stand above the other groups that would set American foreign policy if they could?
Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of American government: the disputed election of George W. Bush, and the attacks of September 11th. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House. When the Towers came down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive policy.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable."
PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans.
PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News
The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome.
On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it.
Bush released on September 20th 2002 the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America." It is an ideological match to PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses exactly the same language to describe America's new place in the world. Recall that PNAC demanded an increase in defense spending to at least 3.8% of GDP. Bush's proposed budget for next year asks for $379 billion in defense spending, almost exactly 3.8% of GDP.
In August of 2002, Defense Policy Board chairman and PNAC member Richard Perle heard a policy briefing from a think tank associated with the Rand Corporation. According to the Washington Post and The Nation, the final slide of this presentation described "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot, and Egypt as the prize" in a war that would purportedly be about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's weapons. Bush has deployed massive forces into the Mideast region, while simultaneously engaging American forces in the Philippines and playing nuclear chicken with North Korea. Somewhere in all this lurks at least one of the "major theater wars" desired by the September 2002 PNAC report.
Iraq is but the beginning, a pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a central member of PNAC, sees America establishing permanent military bases in Iraq after the war. This is purportedly a measure to defend the peace in the Middle East, and to make sure the oil flows. The nations in that region, however, will see this for what it is: a jump-off point for American forces to invade any nation in that region they choose to. The American people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan after America defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is planned.
All of the horses are traveling together at speed here. The defense contractors who sup on American tax revenue will be handsomely paid for arming this new American empire. The corporations that own the news media will sell this eternal war at a profit, as viewership goes through the stratosphere when there is combat to be shown. Those within the administration who believe that the defense of Israel is contingent upon laying waste to every possible aggressor in the region will have their dreams fulfilled. The PNAC men who wish for a global Pax Americana at gunpoint will see their plans unfold. Through it all, the bankrollers from the WTO and the IMF will be able to dictate financial terms to the entire planet. This last aspect of the plan is pivotal, and is best described in the newly revised version of Greg Palast's masterpiece, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."
There will be adverse side effects. The siege mentality average Americans are suffering as they smother behind yards of plastic sheeting and duct tape will increase by orders of magnitude as our aggressions bring forth new terrorist attacks against the homeland. These attacks will require the implementation of the newly drafted Patriot Act II, an augmentation of the previous Act that has profoundly sharper teeth. The sun will set on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The American economy will be ravaged by the need for increased defense spending, and by the aforementioned "constabulary" duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Former allies will turn on us. Germany, France and the other nations resisting this Iraq war are fully aware of this game plan. They are not acting out of cowardice or because they love Saddam Hussein, but because they mean to resist this rising American empire, lest they face economic and military serfdom at the hands of George W. Bush. Richard Perle has already stated that France is no longer an American ally. As the eagle spreads its wings, our rhetoric and their resistance will become more agitated and dangerous.
Many people, of course, will die. They will die from war and from want, from famine and disease. At home, the social fabric will be torn in ways that make the Reagan nightmares of crack addiction, homelessness and AIDS seem tame by comparison.
This is the price to be paid for empire, and the men of PNAC who now control the fate and future of America are more than willing to pay it. For them, the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.
The plan was running smoothly until those two icebergs collided. Millions and millions of ordinary people are making it very difficult for Bush's international allies to keep to the script. PNAC may have designs for the control of the "International Commons" of the internet, but for now it is the staging ground for a movement that would see empire take a back seat to a wise peace, human rights, equal protection under the law, and the preponderance of a justice that will, if properly applied, do away forever with the anger and hatred that gives birth to terrorism in the first place.
Tommaso Palladini of Milan perhaps said it best as he marched with his countrymen in Rome. "You fight terrorism," he said, "by creating more justice in the world."
The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be thwarted. It has already begun, but it must not cease. These are men of will, and they do not intend to fail.
-------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books - "War On Iraq" (with Scott Ritter) available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available in May 2003 from Pluto Press. He teaches high school in Boston, MA.
Scott Lowery contributed research to this report.
"Interesting"? Somebody modded this Interesting? Follow the damn link. It's a bloody joke.
There's another side to this whole subscription issue - or 'metered billing' as it's referred to in the article. The industry is trying to steer us towards a subscription rather than purchasing model - i.e. you pay for Windows by the year, rather than buying it outright. In the case of operating systems and server apps, this equates to more revenue for the vendor and a more stable long-term business model - but what about desktop applications?
I'm primarily an ASP/.NET coder, but I do the odd bit of content creation - mainly images and animations for web sites. I run my core apps (OS, email, browsers, text editors) every day. About once a week, I'll fire up Corel Photopaint for an afternoon or so to make up some buttons or something. I use Microsoft Access for two days every quarter, to perform updates to a clients' database.
This means over the course of a year, I use Photopaint for about two hundred hours and Access for eight days. Yet I (or rather my employer) has paid the same price for these applications as someone who uses them all day, every day. There are applications - Photoshop springs to mind - which I don't use at all, because they wouldn't get used frequently enough to justify the cost of the licenses. But if we could pay for these apps on a per-usage or daily basis - actual 'metered billing', the same as water or electricity or bandwidth - they'd become cost-effective. Not to mention the vast number of people who just pirate applications 'cos they only use them occasionally and they're not prepared to pay for it.
Ok, this is highly unlikely because it means less money for the software companies, and if open software continues to improve as it has in the last few years, it'll be redundant before long anyway. But it would make an interesting angle for companies trying to convince their users of the merits of the subscription model.
-- Open Source: It's mad, but you don't have to work here to help.
Sigh,
Companies can't resist the temptation to seek out money for no effort.
I can understand the logic of buying things. I give you money, you give me product or service, I get value.
However, the logic of subscriptions for software is beyond me.
I give you money, you give me product. I use product and get value. Then I give you more money for telephone support, and you give me telephone support. I get value. So far so good. But now suddenly you ask me for more money or else I can't keep on using what I have already bought. You don't have to do any more work, I don't get any more value but yet money changes hands.
And this is not just payment by instalments. If I can't pay the price up front, then by all means do me a deal where I borrow the money and pay quarterly.
These business models cannot survive where the users have a choice.
It is true that subscription can be a blessing for a provider. But it can also turn into a curse for both provider and customer.
I once (ca. 10 year ago) worked for a firm that sold a program for a yearly subscription (you didn't own the program - you leased the right to use it). It removed the focus of the management from the product to a degree were it almost wasn't supported anymore. There wasn't any pressure from dismissing sales as we lived almost on subscribtion alone.
But once a year a month or so before next year subscription was due I was told quickly to prepare a new release with the sole purpose of giving the impression that our customers did get something for their subscription. Management didn't care what it contained as long as I didn't take to long.
AFAIK most of our customers didn't use the upgrade because it didn't really add anything worthwhile anyway.
The way I see subscription-based software working is that there's an introductory price (say, $150) for the basic OS and a year of updates. After that year is up, you can choose to continue the subscription at a maintenance rate of $50/yr, or you can stop maintenance and not get any updates. You still have a valid license for the OS, you just can't install any new updates. Once you go off maintenance, you need to pay the full introductory price to get back on.
Everyone wins in this case: OS vendors get a steady stream of income, users of current PC's get timely updates for not much more than they pay now for OS updates, and users of older PC's don't have to pay a yearly tax just to run an outdated OS.
If Apple had pitched .Mac this way, I might have bought it. (With the extra stuff .Mac offers, it would have to cost a little more, of course).
Of course, this plan will never work, because software companies are not looking at subscriptions as a way to charge the same amount but even out their cash flow. They are looking at it as a source of revenue growth. Which means that instead of $150 and $50/yr, which is closer to what they get now ($150 every two or three years for the major OS update) we'll see more like $300 and $20/mo. And that would be bad.
Of course, an ideal software subscriptions model should be done for the customers, not against them, that is :
Ciao
----
FB
You know, many of you may find this hard to believe, but a lot of big companies actually want a subscription model for their software (and increasingly, hardware too).
It makes cost planning a lot easier and moves big purchases off the balance sheet and onto the P&L. Companies want to know how much something will cost over a period of time - subscription gives them that. Buying the software up-front requires irritating amortization and depreciation models, and decisions on the lifetime of the product and what any upgrade cycle will be. CFOs like monthly expenses more than big capital purchases.
IBM are leading the charge towards "utility computing". You can buy UNIX boxen from them with spare CPUs, where you can ring them up and ask for more processing power for more $/month. They want their software providers to follow suit and, for example, allow users to just increase their application server subscription to another processor on demand.
Sun are just following the market.
This does, of course, have a certain similarity to the strategy of companies like RedHat, and to a great degree it is also IBM's strategy. All of them coult be summarized as "Give the software away for free, and make money on support and consulting."
There is just one really important difference: With Microsoft, if you stop paying the subscription fee, you lose all your rights to use the software. With RedHat, you retain the right to use all the software (and download more whenever you want); you just don't get their support when you have problems.
And with RedHat, you don't have to worry about them suing you if you run their software without their permission on your own machine.
It's interesting that, although IBM has historically been the heavy in the computing field, they don't seem to have caught onto the strategy of threatening customers who terminate a contract but continue to use the software. Maybe this is why they aren't feared as widely as Microsoft is getting to be. They figured out decades ago that there's a lot of money to be made in being friendly and supporting.
But still, if I were in charge of corporate strategy, I'd be wary of both Microsoft and IBM, and if Sun is going that route, I'd ask them some very direct questions about liability. And I'd be talking to several of the linux vendors on the side, with the thought of getting out of the danger of being sued for using my own machines.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
"Microsoft's recent subscription pricing plan"? Microsoft has no "recent subscription pricing plan". All that talk ever was, was a lot of paranoia talk from people who didn't really know what Microsoft meant as "software as a service" when .NET first came out.
Someone link me to more information about this "recent subscription pricing plan", please. Karma awaits!
samrolken
Go have sex, if you can you ugly virgins.
Sun also will continue to offer its traditional per-CPU pricing model for its Sun ONE stack and Solaris, Schwartz said.
Since they're now evidently offering companies a greater choice in how they're going to get their product, there is a very big difference between what they're doing and what MS is trying to do. As I understood it, MS was offering NO choice as to pricing model, which was made more onerous by the great leverage MS has over its customers as a result of limited choice in the Windows world.
The fact that Sun customers will have a choice of pricing model means Sun's not trying to bulldoze anyone, and should be praised instead of vilified as the poster tries to do, since subscription plans can make very good sense for some customers. Extending the range of choices is never a bad thing as long as the set of choices always includes the choices you had before.
with so many GPL'd packages available in each distro, how can Linux go down the "subscription-plan road" ? we cant, and we wont. Its a benefit of the opensource community, since Linux doesnt NEED cash to survive (however some distros need money to survive, thats the difference) theres always GNU/Debian :)
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... Well, at least it's not necessarily about making more money. It's primarily to regularize cash income for companies who have had a cyclic stock price tied to their release cycles.
In fact, they want to do this so much that they'll sometimes make that option more attractive than purchasing: they're willing to sacrifice a little income if it means it's going to be flowing regularly instead of in chunks.
I think they confused the code name for their licensing plan with the code name for their desktop linux distro. Clearly this licensing scheme should be called "Mad Hatter".
Cynic? Maybe he's never managed a data center...
What the article doesn't describe is that Orion is a *huge* improvement for some managers of data centers. Knowing your monthly rental prices ahead of time makes budgeting much easier, which is a very big deal in some companies.
It also emphasizes Sun's broad idea of services as a utility. Ideally a CIO/CTO can pay a monthly fee and get everything: rental software, scalable hardware, technical support for anything that comes up, and consulting services on retainer.
Disclaimer: I worked for Sun and strongly advocated this kind of metered billing. I worked for a big data center before Sun, and saw firsthand that for my CTO budgets I needed monthly predictability more than I needed low prices.
Cheers, Joel
You dumbasses.
1- This is not Sun changing the pricing for Solaris. Nowhere is it stated that Sun will stop issuing/honoring the Solaris RTU for systems with less than four CPUs.
2- Orion will not just be selling Solaris, it will "build all of Sun's software into the Solaris OS and offer a yearly subscription for Solaris, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president of software, said at the vendor's Worldwide Analyst Conference here."
That means no more licensing headaches for people using Sun's software for Solaris. Just one subscription for the directory tools, the management tools, etc.. Orion will make business with Sun easy for companies with money to burn and no time to spend dealing with it, and Sun has plenty of customers like that.
So many of us are passing judgement based on what Microsoft pulled, and that is hardly a good idea, since Microsoft is well-known for such tactics. Let's instead wait and see what Sun does before passing judgement. Whatever the case, a subscription service is bound to save some people money. The real test will be what is done for the rest of us. If Sun can offer a flexible subscription plan that offers good incentives for those who upgrade frequently, while continuing to offer their products without the subscription service, they are certain to develop additional revenue while not betraying the community. And with this revenue, they can continue to make valid contributions to the community. Which they can do simply because they have the money and resources to put to the task.
Hey, computer executives need mansions and yatchs too.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
So... is that new game Master of Orion a crack for Solaris?
Or is Solaris a planet in Master of Orion?
I'm getting confused...
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
It looks like another attempt to grab more cash in this nasty economy to me
In other news:
McDonald's announced today that it was increasing the cost of a Big Mac from $1.73 to $1.75. Is this also an "attempt to grab more cash in this nasty economy"?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I guess it is, since they're going back to the way they did business before they started this "Free Solaris" business. But really, they used to sell Solaris on subscription basis before then ($1000 for all updates for 2 years or whatever) so this is a non-story.
The only problem I see with Sun's Project Orion is that the heat and blast from the nuclear pulse propulsion drive will make it hard to administer the system effectively.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
Ok, so in summary Sun needs help beating off Microsoft? Ok, well, maybe not phrased that way, but...
The way to increase one's profits isn't by alienating your current customer base, but by catering to new ones. If I were a Sun customer, this would send me elsewhere (Linux).
However, as a non-Sun customer, what they should be doing instead is introducing new products that appeal more to me... How about servers geared to small businesses, something that can serve up my local files and host my web page at the same time... That's just off the top of my head. Don't alienate your current customer base.. Cater to new ones.
of course, apt-move etc should also be implemented.
with apt-get update && apt-get upgrade in cron this will allow to make your systems resonably secure.
Existing situation with jar archives and signed patches is far from being ideal. I don't want to have Java only for being able to patch my server
I think he meant the solar system and the sun. The sun sets every 24 hours here on earth.
cpeterso
now eat it!!
now eat it!! dipshit licking asshole pumping dick smuggling cum guzzling faggot bitch ass trick, and you like that fucky shit
Thanks for taking out the troll with the cluebat.
/etc/passwd. How about that for "Sun being so bad."
We export NFS here on Solaris/x86 because we have to. NFS as a server is essentially broken on Linux. I'm not a big x86-o-phile, but I would rather export NFS with NetApp or Sun's own than anything else - it just works.
Log into Grex [cyberspace.org] sometime, its an ancient (by computing standards) 2-way sun box running 4.1.4 on 4m. Works perfect. And it has 25,000 users in the
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
> ... Solaris ... and maturity, which Linux still somewhat lacks. ...
> Solaris is also rock solid. Sure, Linux can have multi-year uptimes,
Ha! I crashed the kernel! Solaris 8 running on a SunBlade 100. Used "link" to make a hardlinked directory. (admittedly foolish. yes as root.) THen, I, dunno, tried to rename it or something. Freeze. bink. reboot.
OK so I've crashed the Linux kernel a few times too. don't ask me about the disk formatting disasters.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
The UltraSPARC is dead last in performance. The top executives at Sun are now debating whether to terminate development of the chip that would have been the UltraSPARC V.
How long will it be before they require all JRE and JDKs to do the same?
A friend of mine kept saying that it was only a matter of time before Sun ".NET"ed us or "XP"ed on us (in reference to Java).
This is why we need an independent language standard (like C++ is). Sure, Microsoft will VisualC++ it or J++ it, but at least we will be somewhat independent still. Other vendors can still support that independent language too and it would be great for Unix.
Any takers?
There is more to Orion than meets the eye. If Sun pulls this off, for the first time Sun software will be truly inter-operable. For example the latest Sun ONE directory server will work seamlessly with the latest application server, which in turn will be tuned to take advantage of the latest Solaris on offer. All the products will have similar user interfaces making the use of them much easier. I have reason to believe that this is the first time Sun is getting its act together on the software front. Subscriptions should not be a bad idea. The idea is, Solaris comes pre-loaded with a plethora of software that work well as a team & if you want to make commercial use of any of these, you have to pay. I see it as a boon to the ordinary developer, who does not have to pay for the OS if he buys a single processor Sun box and he gets all the goodies for free. How far it affects the corporate customer remains to be seen.
1.- Show your evidence for 1 if you can.
2.- That is a vulgar lie. I have used NFS in many different industries (banking, oil, goverment, geography, geophisics, research, graphic design) under many different conditions (from a couple of worwstations in one network up to several thousends machines accessing a few central servers) and it has always been a reliable tool. Since SunOS 4.x by the way. As with any piece of software you'll find the ocassional bug, but not at the scale that you pretend it was,
3.-Hardware failures: you are liying, plain and simple. Right now I am directly responsible for around 70 machines and we see hardware errors around once a month (normally with machines that we are re-using and thus are handled with less care than normally). New machines? Can't remember one incident in the last 4 years.
If your budget is so limited that you have to cram services in the same machine then yes, you should be using cheaper machines. What a joy will be to se your do-it-all servers have a problem and see al you services colapse at the same time just because you are macho enough to keep that CPU usage at 100% utilization (which begs the question, if you are such a fan of avoiding single points of failure, how do you justify to have several vital services in the same box?).
4.- You are completely incompetent. There are no abolutes here, the ease of administration could be a major concern compared to the risk of your box being lost, administering several redundant systems increase administration complexity, no matter how competent your people are. In any case if you have the money and the need to have such a machine I assure you that then you have contingency mechanisms to make sure you can continue working if you lose your machine (normaly replication to an off-site facility).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
- (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
- (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
-- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
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