Slashdot Mirror
Sun's Schwartz Speaks Out on Linux, SCO
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with eWeek Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president for software, states: "We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price.". Also: "IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?""
'We believe you should buy our product instead'
This is news?
Banaaaana!
sun is getting killed by lintel. what else they gonna say. of course, it makes him look desperate and stupid.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Can someone please explain to me how the purchase price of Solaris is less than that of Linux?
Cost of ownership maybe cheaper, sure. And warranties/support options as well. But what is cheaper up-front than free?
"we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price."
In other news, Ford recommends Ford cars, Dell have a high cosideration of Dell products and McD suggests we all eat a hamburger.
What's wrong with people today?
Obviously smoking the same stuff as SCO.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
this is the lamest article I have seen on slashdot in a long time... and that is saying something
Sun thinks they have a chance at long term survival. SCO realizes they do not, so they hire clever lawyers. SCO burns to the ground, and the execs get out of it smelling like hotel soap.
"The absurd is clear reasoning recognizing its limits"
-Albert Camus
"You have the ring, and I see your Schwartz is as big as mine...Now let's see how well you handle it."
- Dark Helmet
Audio here: [wav]
He is absolutely right.
SUN is raping us all, they once did with Star Office they continue with GNOME and now after the pig got slaughtered they start blaming Linux and hyping Solaris and thus play the ball back to SCO. As if this all isn't a constructed situation. Tactically planned and decided. Who belived that SUN is simply helping open source and the fine GNOME and Staroffice is a fool. They are not playing pingpong in the childhood they are cash makers.
Sun really needs a business model. Although linux is still a baby (according to IBM - 9yr old), it is poised to take over soon.
So who is going to win? Solaris, Linux, or Windows...?
Build karma with open source community by announcing "Mad Hatter" linux based desktop one week...burn karma with a variety of anti-linux comments the next week.
Sun is a very strange company.
The bit I don't get about this, is their selling Linux solutions, which gives it free publicity.
is bigger than mine.
However, I'd say that you need at least 8 CPUs or more to take full advantage of Sun's superior hardware/software architecture.
BOO! TERRO
Tell that to SCO, since that's all they seem to run on their webserver...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
that if one didn't have anything intelligent to say, it generally best to not say anything at all... except, of course, when posting a reply to something like this :)
chown -R us
What a foolish statement. It's as if people were to start really wanting Pepsis so bad that Coke had to start selling them. Then Coke goes and says "We'll sell you Pepsi cause you want it and we love taking your money, but Coke is a better cola" This is also assuming Pepsi came out with a way to make the cola at home for free and let you alter the formula, then sell it as your own cola.
Scott McNealy used to always say gravity was on his side. I used to wonder how he figured that since you had IBM, and all the other big iron makers dropping in from above and back then it was microsoft and intel setting up a rockhard floor for him to be squished on.
Sun is now in quite the pickle. Sparcstations arent a contender for the desktop. Their server sales are being trashed by Linux on Intel, and Linux on mainframe.
Their latest play MadHatter looks nice but so does lindows,suse, and redhat. The latter 3 have one great thing going for them, they are one time licenses not perpetual service contracts like mad hatter.
Its no wonder that they paid SCO a licenses fee and are now dissing Linux. Its also no wonder that Bill Joy left the company.
Once again they show their true colors. They see linux as something stupid that the people want but they know better. They are out of their league. They keep harping on IBM not indemnifying their customers from the SCO debacle. Why should IBM a primarily hardware & services company indemnify their customers for using Linux? They don't do it with MS, they don't do it with zOS, AIX, or OS/400.
MS got sued and LOST with the plugin thing, hell MS got sent up in front of the justice department. Should a hardware vendor such as IBM or Dell have to protect their customers from that? No, they don't.
Sun is the dinosaur in this market. They make second rate hardware that is over priced and underperformed. Why else would they never want to run a TPC benchmark and keep ballyhooing 'real world' tests when they come in and try to convince you to buy their hardware? They stopped making benchmarks the day they stopped winning them and got behind. Ultrasparc 4 was to save the world yet we still haven't seen it. Now little Intel machines that cost less than the yearly maintenance of the 'inexpensive' Sun boxes can run circles around them on Linux.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Man, and thought Microsoft was the most "unfocused" company in the world. If Sun would make things cheaper and easier for people to buy or use their products then everyone would be: 1. Running Solaris 2. Java would be a standard 3. Schools would be using Sun boxes instead of Dells 4. need we go on? And explain the departures of the top execs in the last year or so? McNealy can only bash Microsoft for so long before it gets old. Maybe he should use that energy to produce a profitable company and stop blaming others...
http://www.geocities.com/baddsectorr
Ten percent in the first year? What is he kidding? I think reporters should really ask for some sort of substantiation for claims like this. 10 percent would be a seismic shift in the computing industry. This is not a realistic prediction.
eWEEK: So, does the uncertainty around Linux benefit Sun and Solaris?
Schwartz: We have an interesting migration opportunity now because we can go back with Unix that is familiar, we can deliver the Java Enterprise System pricing at $100 per employee, which allows them to run Solaris at infinite scale.
His playbook is obviously to avoid mentioning "linux" and just substitute "Java Desktop System" at every opportunity. He is disguising the fact that they have in fact adopted a third-party linux distribution for desktops. This is the kind of corporate bs that gets slashdotters on Sun's case.
I think Sun is making a major mistake by not distancing themselves as much as possible from SCO. They're now drinking the SCO Kool-aid (see the "indemnification" comments), and generally taking advantage of the situation. Perhaps it looks good from where they're sitting, but I think it will backfire. Ignoring Linux, while not wise, is understandable. Repeating SCO's FUD, and possibly funding them, is a Very Bad Thing.
Litigious bastards
IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?
Why don't you use a word people know.
I have noticed that they have not FILED any copyright infringement actions, despite their numerous allegations that Linux infringes on their copyrighted code and mentions of the rights of copyright holders in their legal pleadings and press releases. No matter how loudly they proclaim infringement of copyright, they aren't willing to use the appropriate federal laws (USC-17) to protect this supposedly infringed upon "IP". I wonder why.
If SCO has copyright material that has been infringed upon, they have to go to the INFRINGER (whoever has access to their code and copied it, meaning the code and not just a work-alike clean-room code, into the kernel) for damages. End users and unwitting publishers of infringing materials are not listed in USC-17 as liable for infringement. You can't get damages from a publisher if one author of a short story collection lied about the authorship, nor can you collect from the bookstores and purchasers.
If they have proof that Red Hat is distributing infringing material, they first have to notify RH what the infringing material is. As the innocently infringing publisher, RH has the chance to double check the material, and either remove it or check its pedigree dispute the infringing nature of it.
The only time a publisher can be nailed for damages is if the plaitiff can prove they knew, or could reasonable have been expected to know, that a work was copyright. This covers sleazy anthology publishers who don't bother to get permissions and pay royalties, and anyone stupid enough to accept a well-known work of fiction from anyone but the real author.
Even if Linux isn't as good as Solaris today, who doubts that they are catching up quickly and will be extremely competitive sooner or later?
...fucked up companies like SCO, SUN and all the other big morons.
who bend with the wind, and talk bullshit that suits them best.
one day they are your best friends, just love linux and do everything, are the market leaders in the linux community, community being sooooo important to them, they were even the first ones to support and help the OSS community, and the next day, they shit infront of you, and give a fuck what happens to your world, and your ideas.
i say a big FUCK YOU SUN, FUCK YOU SCO, FUCK everybody whos talking dishonest bullshit, every day a different story.
jesus, this world is full of evil and corrupt businesses, powerful bastards, who cant get enuff power and influence down their throat.
FUCK YOU again!
Possibly he was speaking of Suns niche market which caters to organizations that still need a big iron machine to do their work for them (or at least they think they do). This is where Sun shines. In regards to his statement about Linux not belonging on the server, well what do you expect him to say? Sun sells competing software for a server os. Just because they sell a desktop version of Linux doesnt mean they are going to throw away and disregard their crown jewel for it
I have licenses to all those issues that SCO is suing IBM for. If I didn't have them, I certainly wouldn't indemnify them.
So do I buddy. It's right here.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Hey, IBM, why don't you?
They make second rate hardware that is over priced and underperformed
Anyone that has used Sun hardware would not say this. Tell us about your experience with Sun.
Why else would they never want to run a TPC benchmark and keep ballyhooing 'real world' tests when they come in and try to convince you to buy their hardware.
Because even the other vendors and TPC themselves admit it's outdated. Do you make your server purchasing decisions based on a single benchmark?
Ultrasparc 4 was to save the world yet we still haven't seen it.
Because it's not supposed to be released until 2004.
Why is Sun's StarOffice a pentagram in a circle....it creeps me out.
Doesn't this all seem far too familiar to a lot of you out there? Here we see another veteran UNIX company that has fallen on hard times, pretending to embrace Linux but speaking out of both sides of their mouth. Right now Sun is getting press through their Linux efforts, which they desperately need. At the same time, it's clear they don't really like Linux, and would rather not be promoting it. Linux beat them, and now they are begrudgingly pushing it, a little. If their financial situation gets dire, Linux will be the first enemy they'll look to even the score with. After all, it's all our fault what happened to them.
How does a billion dollar company keep makign thse big goofs..
First implying that they will indemify a cusotmer against frivouls lawsuits on copyright infringment..remeber users are never sued in a copyright matter becasue there is no legal basis to do so..
Two, saying linxu on servers is a non issue when in fact Unix software OS dying such as Solaris is a reality..take a look at Sun's last quarter statement on rpofit and loss to see why..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
[...]
Sun, hear me! It is true, what many of you have heard. The Linux machines have gathered an army of beowulfs and as I speak, that army is drawing nearer to our home. Believe me when I say we have a difficult time ahead of us. But if we are to be prepared for it, we must first shed our fear of it. I stand here, before you now, truthfully unafraid. Why? Because I believe something you do not? No, I stand here without fear because I remember. I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me but because of the path that lies behind me. I remember that for 100 years we have fought these Linux machines. I remember that for 100 years they have sent their beowulf armies to destroy us, and after a century of war I remember that which matters most...We are still here! Today, let us send a message to that beowulf army. Tonight, let us shake this cave. Tonight, let us tremble these halls of earth, steel, and stone, let us be heard from red tar to black sky. Tonight, let us make them remember, this is Sun and we are not afraid!
I really wish Sun would stop going on about indemnity. Scwartz says:
We will also indemnify you for Solaris, and if IBM says you don't need it, then why do they have so many lawyers suing people over patent and copy violations.
But he must know that users do not need indemnifying against such violations.
Then:
If you use Linux on the server, even if we sold the distribution to you, you are on your own.
He continues on and on about it. Sun are obsessed with this at the moment because they think they can worry PHBs. However the danger for them is that people purchasing Linux servers (an increasing market) will avoid Sun because they are really only interested in selling Solaris.
- Brian.
I know why he says that Solaris is dramatically less expensive than Linux. It's because he works for Sun and therefore doesn't pay Sun's massive rates for service contracts. :-)
Seriously, Sun's post-sales services are pretty good, but nobody ever said they were cheap. Or not too expensive. Or not even just very expensive. The only word that comes to mind for decent cover is exhorbitant.
A top-end Sun service contract costs many many times the total cost of a Linux server system, including all its hardware, software, and permanent supply of Jolt cola, so clearly the man is engaged in baseless PR.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Everyone knows Linux rules supreme.
Welcome to the real world, kiddo.
BOO! TERRO
Am I misunderstanding something about his math?
expect to take 10 percent of the market in the first year. Ten percent of a $30 billion a year desktop market is huge. So, is it going to be more than 10 percent? I hope so, but in the next year I'd like to get a million users. There's a hundred million computers sold every year, I want to be in front of a million of those and two-million the next year.
How is 1 or 2 million out of 100 million "10 percent of the market?" Anyhow, 1% of the desktop market in one year is an aggressive goal. 10% is ludicrous. Enterprises are not going to switch desktop operating systems that quickly.
Sun is saying that they WON'T indemnify against Linux use on the server. But given that Sun has a valid UNIX licence, and they can distribute as many UNIX kernels as they wish, how could SCO argue that a Linux user who got their kernel from Sun is not a valid licencee? And how would Sun be able to stand up in court and say that they sold Linux to someone without a valid licence, yet they're not responsible?
This is essentially what they did when they came out with "New Coke," but it was so ludicris, disgusting, and to throngs of people, an affront to American culture that they went back to "CocaCola Classic"
In establishd *NIX environments there is not much differentiation between a "client" and a "server." The client/server model's application to operating systems is not the sort of model Sun has traditionally pushed - it is really Microsoft's legacy on the industry.
For Schwartz to say that he has no problem with GNU/Linux on the desktop but reservations about putting it on the server is absurd. Hey, Schwartz, I thought the network was the computer ...
Thank god that at the ISP I work at we finally replaced all of the Sloaris boxes we inherited from an ISP we bought with Linux. I never have to deal with it again ;)
NR
In comparing the Microsoft EULA to the GPL, Microsoft's EULAs are pretty uniform when it come to exluding themselves from liability...
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/comparing_the_ gpl_to_eula.pdf
The Timeline Inc case bring up an important issue; while no vendor can expected to identify all potential patent violation when developing software, when the vendor does purchase and license technology from a third party, the vendor should insure that the end user/develop is not put at further risk.
Even Microsoft's May 27th changes which apply only to customers under enterprise licensing contracts, which Microsoft claims grants greater immunity, contains loop holes which greatly negate Microsoft's liability.
https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/contr actupdates.asp
https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/downloads/mba. doc
The new section 6 clause contain exceptions
Loophole #1
"(ii) code or materials provided by you as part of service deliverables"
This would effectively still indemnify Microsoft against most of the Timeline Inc patent claims, as it is the developer/end user's code ( even visual basic code ) which would be in violation of Timeline's patent claims.
Microsoft has a history of licensing third party code and patents in such a manner that still leaves developers and users exposed to IP threats. Even going back to the LZH/GIF Unisys patents,
http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/
They'll do it again in a second if it looks like Linux is eating Solaris's lunch.
So, no. Linux is no threat to Sun. It's simply a transition challenge.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Wow, so what you're saying is that you didn't read Sun's EULA but you're guessing? Then you go on about Microsoft a bunch?
Is there a point to this or are you just karma whoring with your links and long posts?
the world, is being created by you. you can make the difference dood.
u apparently didnt realize what the fool was talking about when you hit your reply button.
I do not believe in Solaris on desktops. I am running Linux on my Sun Ultra 5. Period.
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
Obvious question: if I buy Linux from Sun, will Sun offer me indemnity?
Where will Linux be?
'Nuff said.
He does have a major strategic point about Linux: Sure it's a great operating system, but it is not (at this point) network aware.
The definition of network aware to me means having built in services that interconnect the operating system with the Internet. And not simple services such as a web server, I mean service suites of things such as a instant messenging, a collaborative calender (e.g. Lotus Notes), and other as yet undreamed of services that improve or redefine work and information flows between people.
Shh.
Its unfortunate the power that PR and Marketing departments have in a company these days. I'm not saying anyone should talk down about their own products, but statements like this are just a regurgitation of some form-letter-like marketing material. It used to be that you could get frank conversation from most companies. Honest "Yes we would like you to buy our product. Its strong suits are A, B, and C, while it isn't necessarily comparable to Co. X's product in circumstances 1, 2, and 3, we think that in your situation this isn't too significant of an issue because of... etc." rhetoric. It truely allows customers to debate the value of various products, and, IMHO, builds trust and faith in the vendor. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware, product shortcomings are discovered either through external sources, or, even worse, after the ink is dry.
Oh well, maybe I'm just being a little too altruistic.
Children in the backseats don't cause accidents. Accidents in the back seats cause children.
obviosuly, Sun is run by wicked mathmatcians.
Anyone else care to explain what this actually means?
"IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers? And if you don't need to indemnity, why do you have the world's largest patent litigation team inside IBM suing the bejesus out of the entire industry, holding them up for ransom on IP that you claim is yours that they have purloined. Well, go look in the mirror guys. This will tear that company asunder."
It would seem to be yet another example of a bunch of words that don't really mean anything but that appear to support your argument if the reader isn't paying much attention.
Is IBM suing the bejesus out of the entire industry?
Apparently IBM is holding the entire industry to ransom with IP that I claim is mine that IBM has, apparently, purloined.
I often answer questions like this when I am still asleep (or tripping). I can string together a grammatically correct sentence, but it means nothing, in fact it looks like something Lewis Carol wrote...
(I am still unsure who is supposed to look in the mirror or what they will find when they do so.)
My initial reaction to this is 'Fuck*rs!' Here is a multi-billion $ Corportation doing untold PR damage to the community's fight against SCO. Did you notice the bit where he implied that Sun would take on IBM themselves, or by proxy, if SCO loses?
Sun are on my list from this moment on. A new axis of evil has emerged (MS/SCO/Sun) and we will fight them on the beaches...
Bastards!
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
Schwartz has just given the game away. Sun is the fortune 500 company that bought the token Linux usage license off SCO. I'm pretty sure SCO and/or Sun denied it at the time, but we know how trustworthy they are now.
Let me get this straight. This guy is saying that Linux has a place on the desktop but not the server? I thought it was supposed to be the opposite. (I know. I know. Linux desktops are tastier than they used to be.)
This guy is seriously reaching. He's also wrong about his customers. At one time, if truly necessary, I would have considered Solaris for high IO applications. Not now. He all but came right out and said that SCO is a business partner. I also would have considered purchasing StarOffice at work. Not now.
Sun you're known by the company you keep. Publically distance yourself from them before you really hurt yourselves.
This won't hold up in court. Either they back Linux and they indemnify their customers or they do not. Which is it, Sun? You can't have it both ways.
No wonder why Sun is in the trouble it is in - it has terrible leadership, also-ran commodity hardware and no clear message.
If you're an enterprise and go to RedHat or Suse to get your "free" Linux, you'd better bring a decent pile of cash with you.
will indemnify it's customers from being sued by Sun.
SCO would be equally wrong if Linux was a closed-source piece of code being sold by a company. In fact Microsoft was sued for exactly this. What was the result? 1. Microsoft removed the code. 2. Microsoft (the infringing party) paid a fine. 3. NOTHING happened to Microsoft's customers they were not even forced to upgrade to non-infringing versions.
If SCO was actually doing anything based on reality, they would immediately indicate what code was infringing, and insist that it be removed from all future Linux distributions. Then (perhaps with the cooperation of the "open source community") the persons responsible for this infringement would be identified, and SCO can go and sue them. With any luck for SCO it will be shown that the infringers belonged to a place with deep pockets, like IBM.
Both sides are foolishly trying to turn this into an argument about GPL and public domain and open source. It has NOTHING to do with that, the problems with SCO are in basic copyright laws and precedence.
Er, ok. I would have thought the fact they're responsible for a sizable chunk of open source would prove the opposite. But, obviously, "Loving Linux" is the real test of whether you're against open source or not. I assume you'd go into meltdown if they said they hate Linux, think it's the worst operating system ever written, and BTW, they think FreeBSD is cool.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Linux plays a role in the server market whether you want to "believe" in it or not. His elliptical method of writing is pure corporatese, and serves as a classic example of why Sun is in a pretty scary position right now. Rather than address reality, they're avoiding it with sneaky turns of phrase.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Sun you're known by the company you keep.
SCO, Sun, what's the difference?
Not much. They both rely on creating confusion to market their products.
Only when Sun copies Steve Ballmer's Anti-Linux FUD
Does Microsoft ( or any other proprietary software vendor ) truly indemnifies it's own customers? Not if Microsoft's current license agreements are any thing to go by.
If it makes you happy to believe in the utopia where the insignificant insect lives we live can make the difference in anything truly important, go for it. Whatever floats your boat and keeps you going until you drop off.
BOO! TERRO
I can see this also happening with IBM in the future... Alliances shift and change especially in the corporate world. I think OSS's only really permanent and trustworthy ally lies with academia
Does Microsoft ( or any other proprietary software vendor ) truly indemnifies it's own customers? Not if Microsoft's current license agreements are any thing to go by.
Does the GPL? Does the GPL even have the **potential** to?
PS: I'm not reading that whole goddamn thing. Give me some relavant quotes.
And it isn't corporate profits.
The reason is that the levels of support are incomparable.
Sun will debug down to the driver level and on to the hardware if needed in order to support their customers.
The Intel based vendors will tell you to reboot and then that sorry, X isn't supported with Y.
Of course, you needn't buy a top end support contract if you don't want it.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Why in the heck would anyone want to buy Linux from Sun, if their attitude is pretty much "Yeah, we'll sell it to you, but you're on your own"? Hell, if someone wants to give me money to give them a disc, with no obligation to support them, I'll run my CD-R burner into the ground to accomidate them. :)
As an admin who worked on the hack known as a Cobalt (I got the Cobalt rep to almost admit that it was created in a Garage after their failover demo flopped), I would have to agree with Sun, the Cobalt blows, and if their perception of Linux is based upon that, well they're correct, as to why they bought Cobalt I will never understand.
I would rather admin an unpatched 6.2 Redhat box than touch a Cobalt ever again, the hardware defect rate was almost one in every box of five we recieved(before the Sun purchase), I'm just glad I didn't have to process all the RMAs.
OH, so if you purchase Sun's Linux solution, apparently it's broken out of the box. I like Sun hardware and Solaris, but they just need to leave the Linux field and do Solaris exclusively, OpenOffice is a solid product too. Please Sun, stop the half hearted Linux attempts.
My own take on this as a customer is that I DON'T want my service provider to provide me with indemnification. I've a brain and that's how I run my company. No, indemnification from my services provider isn't what I want. What I want is for them to sue any company that threatens me with unfounded claims.
Fortunately, IBM is doing just that. We will do business with IBM. HP isn't.
Hearing Scott McNealy is like hearing Steve Jobs or Ralph Nader. Your time is over; give it up.
i love making offtopic posts:
i saw this the other day: some muppet head and it made me think of something about government tax systems ruining the market system that i wont go into here. -> goats
but anyway what people who "want to get rich" need to think about it what people "with money" want and need and then produce it cheaper and better than anyone else. What they must then do is make sure that they trap their customers into a cycle of buying more products or services from you.
If people dont buy your product its your own fault, you either dont have a good enough product, dont sell it cheap enough, have not forced your current customers into sufficient dependence, or aren't a good liar.
The market is king., living on welfare is VERY comfortable in most first world economies. You should only work if you're enjoying it. a sense of humour always helps.
embedded linux
NZheretic Aka David Mohring.
Sun is being so hypocritical.
Why does Sun's license agreement explicitly state that Sun can not be held liable for loses caused by Sun software?
It sounds like Sun doesn't have faith in their own product line. Should I use Sun products for mission-critical applications? Well, I know that Sun won't stand behind me if I do!
Well, I suppose that if there will never be any more security threats then you'll never need an update, but I suspect that most organizations have thrown up their hands and accepted the fact that every so often, you gotta pay the man.
This doesn't change whether it's Linux, Windows, or Solaris - only the METHOD changes and only you can decide whether you can live with the terms.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Solaris is SVR4 Unix, with CDE and now Gnome. HP-UX is SVR4 Unix with CDE and maybe Gnome. There's no significant lock in to the OS, Solaris is already compatible and interchangable with Linux, HP-UX, AIX and the rest.
Unlike Apple, you do not buy Sun systems for the operating system, you buy Sun systems and HP systems for the system as a whole particularly the performance and scalability of the hardware and in the HP case, you just have to live with the OS.
If Sun decide that Linux will do the job and is taking their market they will change.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
.. that I'm ashamed to be a Sun employee.
I've seen Sun's play real world against Linux.
Linux is cheap, robust, powerful.
But when your talking about mission critical, high performance, no-limit systems... your talking about solaris.
Solaris on one of Sun's boxes is really something. Combined with Netscape Enterprise, and Tomcat.. they are robust. These things really can take a ton of traffic, and not sweat it.
Not to mention their stability, and security.
For 90% of websites out there... Linux is the better alternative. They don't need the performance, power, stability of Solaris on Sun hardware. Will 5 minutes of downtime on Flashyourrack.com really kill you? Of course not.
But when it's a mission critical website, that needs to run... it's Solaris.
Solaris on Sun hardware hurts the wallet, but it's powerful. They can really take a beating and continue on.
LOL
We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period.
What horseshit. Period.
You are being so naive.
Try to find a software supplier who will accept liability for losses caused by the use of their systems.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
and possibly funding them
What do you mean, "possibly"? It has been explitictly shown that they are funding them.
Sun have been trying to look good to Linux crowd (in various expos etc), while slamming Linux every opportunity they get on the media and behind the scenes. They probably think we don't follow the media?
BTW, what's the status of OOo right now? Would the project survive if Sun stopped paying the developers? Does it have a healthy community yet? Mozilla did well, we'll see how OOo does. Novell & Red Hat would do well to be ready to pay some people to get intimately familiar with the code base..
How long we can trust these backstabbers remains to be seen.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Sun hardware USED TO BE superior/more reliable.
It hasn't been that way for a long time.
I have spent several years administrating both linux and solaris (as to be distinguished from the various rantings I've already seen on this thread from people who obviously have not). Now to some extent I disagree with him very much - linux does have a place on servers. Its a matter of which ones though, really. :P
In my experience, if you have something that needs to be bulletproof - if you have something that, on the ultra-rare occassion there is a major problem that is beyond an admin's scope to fix, you can toss cores to a group and demand a quick response (if something dies with a linux box, there's really no one you can get lvl3+ support from) - then you put it on a solaris box. Solaris has a wide range of very useful functions and features that have yet to be mimiced in linux yet. It also has FAR better stability.
On the other hand...if you want to be able to run obscure things, if you want a very versatile and powerful development platform, if you want a cheap but powerful system to do something an enterprise sun box doesn't make sense for, then linux is definately your way to go. If you want to do computational clustering, still linux (though sun's grid engine can still be used, if you want...).
I've been a linux nut since 95. I have loved seeing it go from a hobby OS to something serious. Score a huge one for the underdog! On a high-end server though, it still has a long way to go to compare to solaris. For an easy dividing-line, I find anything from Sun that isn't a v880 or better to be pointless. Solaris for x86 sucks terribly, and once you're below the v880 line you should just be using an intel or amd (depending, again, on function) system, and running linux as its OS.
At least, that's my opinion...as someone with actual experiencerunning both.
The entire computing programming industry has been changed because of Java in some way or another. Object oriented coding is used now by those that work in VB. PHP, Perl, and Python all are improving their ability to work with the Java language and JSP is very popular with Apache users.
Now why the heck would you wanto to alienate the very people that worked to get you language into the enterprise? This attitude on Sun's part strikes me as something that will make it more difficult to promote Java as the platform to use over others. Promote your own OS, sure, but Sun had better get Java out the door as much as possible over the next few years, or it's going to get swallowed up either by an existing language or an adaptation of a language that has yet to be realized. And then if Java is less popular, then there goes to the service, training, and publishing revenue streams to Sun.
Hardware is only going to become more of a commodity, and there is no way around that future. I just hope Sun doesn't tighten their grip, hurting those that have pushed to use Java as an alternative to M$ in the process.
Who knows, maybe Apple will buy them for their sales department.
Sun hardware USED TO BE superior/more reliable.
Sorry bro, my E250's are still chugging along fine. No hardware problems, no need to upgrade because of the "slow sun hardware lololololol". Same goes for the newer stuff. Sure, the disks crap out every once in a while but that's to be expected.
It hasn't been that way for a long time.
Gimme a date.
I am in a position to make purchase recommendations.
My initial thoughts after seeing the new strategy was that Sun is coming around and maybe I need to take a second look at Sun. However the SCO connection tells me to stay the hell away from Sun.
yeah, I guess some people want to conviently forget about OpenOffice when it comes time to bash Sun. Not to mention the contributions to Gnome.
and if it can be determined, code which originated from Sun. If they're planning to pull a SCO, that's what we should be looking at.
Ignore him.
He has no clue what he is talking about, he's probably working at a small company (maybe a web hoster?) and thinks Sun is the Enemy besides Microsoft.
So, has Sun been ghostwriting for SCO all along? Or is their strangely similar wording just weird coincidence?
I guess it doesn't matter. I feel like they don't support the Linux community -- and by extension, the Open Source community. So I question why I support them.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Not looking terribly hard, since I really REALLY like Redhat, but as I read about Solaris, I discover they sell a version that can run on Intel and a lot of the software I run can also run on Solaris.
Now, I am hearing an executive tell me he will sell me Linux but they won't support it.
Well, fuck that. I won't support Sun either. I won't consider buying Solaris or any of their (most likely) crappy software modules to run on Solaris, and I won't even consider telling others about Sun and their products.
Thanks, Schwatz for narrowing my choice on Linux/Unix offerings to FreeBSD and Redhat. Whether you want to admit it, you done good.
Dawn of the Dead
In the article Schwartz mentions that he will get Toshiba, Samsung and Sony as customers. Does that mean we may be getting some Sun-based computers from these companies soon?
hey!
may they have the same fate as fiasSCO!
It's getting to where Sun's only popular and successful product is Java. The standard edition SDK and Netbeans are free, but for how much longer? I think they'll start squeezing for money if they keep getting their asses kicked in hardware and OSes.
Darl... use the Schwartz...
Laws are for people with no friends.
So, I have to ask, because I don't really know.
What's the most number of CPUs that you can run in one box under Solaris? Some question for Linux. Can someone answer that for me?
One of the things that bugged me about Linux when I was paying closer attention to the kernel was that Linus seemed to be completely against finely-grained semaphores in the kernel and basically opted for huge chunks semaphored code instead. In order to be able to take advantage of a high number of CPUs in a system, the Linux kernel is going to have to go to that route, or you'll end up with a lot of CPUs spinning cycles while they wait for other CPUs to finish up whatever they're doing. (That's assuming of course that Linux allows multiple processes in kernel context at the same time, vs. the traditional Unix model).
Unless Linux can solve this sort of problem, Solaris will have an advantage because they can throw more hardware into one box, and have the kernel take advantage of it.
1 - Solaris is a dying system. Indeed it's stable and powerful but way less convenient than Linux on every platform, Sparc included. Where cost is an issue it will have less than 3 years of life; where reliability is it will survive less than 6.
2 - IBM has already estabilished a succesful business putting Linux on big systems; Sun would have to fight an unbeatable competitor on that field.
3 - Sun then has no choice but pushing customers into switching to Solaris rather than trying to plan itself a switch to Linux in a few years.
Sun stated they were no longer going to develop the sparc processors, and in fact were switching over to the AMD opteron (or amd64) line. This was part of an internal emailing they sent to solaris customers.
This actually makes a lot of sense, and saves them bundles of money in the process.
of course, there's the other bit of future history not many people know, Suns lofty plans for solaris10. Solaris10 is supposed to use the Linux kernel completely, just how hypocritical they are about all this is obvious with this press release.
I personally like Sun boxes, with solaris, they really cook, especially the higher end enterprise server boxes, where linux doesn't quite work yet (neither does BSD), Suns future plans via solaris10 is to standardize these 3 different flavors of unix, and to heck with anyone that doesn't like it.
solaris10 was supposed to be a solaris, linux, bsd blend, but use the linux kernel. Maybe this is why they're all over the map with what they're press releases say. I guess only time will tell.
He hopes to take 10 percent from the desktop market share. Neither Linux or Apple has yet to do this. I some how doubt Sun could pull this off. Linux perhaps has more marketshare then Apple but it's hard to measure since more people download Linux and they aren't required to fill out anything before they download(which is a shot in the foot as you can't measure marketshare accuartely). What really does Sun's product have over Microsoft, as far as program selection, or over all userfriendliness. I for one hate the purple look of their desktop offering, it looks like a bad fluxbox alien theme or something to that effect.
> If SCO has copyright material that has been infringed upon,
> they have to go to the INFRINGER (whoever has access to their code and copied it,
> meaning the code and not just a work-alike clean-room code, into the kernel)
> for damages.
> End users and unwitting publishers of infringing materials are not listed in USC-17 as
> liable for infringement.
> You can't get damages from a publisher if one author of a short story collection lied about the authorship,
> nor can you collect from the bookstores and purchasers.
Isn't there a difference between selling and licensing software ?
If I buy a box of Red Hat X.Y at $49, then I bought this software from a distributor that is licensed (GPL) or acting in good faith (infringing software claimed to be GPL, but actually under somebody else's copyright, e.g. SCO's). In this case, according to the parents post, the end user may be in the clear.
However if I license an OS from IBM or SUN (i am not talking about the dubious MS shrink wrap "end user licensing" here), I only get the right to run this OS on box X for a year and get a certain level of maintenance. Next year, I have to pay again.
Theoretically, if the company licensing that OS finds out before next year that they do not have the right to parts of the OS, they could say "sorry, this year you can only license an OS without a filesystem from us".
In this case, wouldn't the user of the software be in a much better position legally with an open source OS than with the most expensive proprietary OS he is running under a licensing scheme and that comes with the most far reaching promises of "indemnification" ?
We run our financial and medical database systems on Solaris, for exactly the reasons posted: stability, robustness, and throughput. Sun hardware is well worth the price of admission.
Solaris is also very nice, but mostly just in the way it integrates with Sun hardware, so you have hot-swap CPUs and memory, for instance (not available on all hardware).
That said: Sun is fucking up. If they think pissing off the FOSS community is going to help their sagging sales, they are grossly mistaken. Many people participating in the FOSS community also use (and purchase!) Sun equipment. Until recently, they have been walking the fine line between helping the community, and just exploiting it. Now they have crossed over.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Interestingly, Sun is thinking of indemnifying Linux uses against SCO's reality distortion field if they use Java. Strange, no?
Can you read the whole interview without hitting your head hard?
/net/updates/i?86/*.rpm
Schwartz is using the word "indemnify" too often; and the sentence "don't even think about using our Linux on the server!" made me go "f*** your stuff, I'm staying with RH" with can be used on server and desktop with very little tweaking.
Wasn't that the whole point of Linux, using the identical distro on the server and client, thus saving on maintainance? Use 2 different kernels and have top performance.
I'm staying with RH (or Debian of course).
They are both good, have plenty of packages and are both mainstream (read: supported).
rpm -F
is fine on both server and desktop.
Regarding the SCO-mess SUN is badly fireing themselves in the foot. Or leg. Or head.
Everybody is hating SCO, everybody is hating vendor-lock-ins. SUN is trying both.
This is very bad PR. Anytime a senior exec starts negatively dissing successful competing products it becomes painfully obvious that the company is hurting. The saddest thing of all is that Sun's hardware is of very good quality and if they made the strategic decision to support Linux on their servers they could have provided good competition to IBM. As it is they will continue to lose customers as more and more companies switch to Linux, which isn't very well supported on Sun hardware. What Sun hasn't noticed is that almost no one is really worried about SCO anymore.
Interesting comment. First, you are missing the point of my original comment. Regardless of whether you think Linux is as good as Solaris, the fact of the matter is that Linux's marketshare is growing rapidly, while Sun's is shrinking. Second, Linux is permeating the enterprise market in ways that you apparently don't see.
It reminds me of the situation in the late 1990s, when everyone was running their dot-com web apps on Solaris, with Sun hardware. "This is mission-critical. There's no way we'd run it on Linux."
Now you don't hear that about web apps. The Sun worshippers now declare that while it's OK to use Linux for web apps, it's not suitable for things outside of Web application development.
I wonder how it will take before the comments shift to something like this: "Linux is OK for web apps and clustering and data warehousing and and as an embedded OS, but it's not nearly as capable as Solaris for ... ."
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Let's face it: The reason Windows is even in the Server market is because of the long standing availability of Windows on the desktop.
For many years, Windows is what most people have used on the desktop. Young programmers have it at home, and start tinkering around, developing for the platform that's sitting in front of them. Naturally, when you need an application on a server, you go with the platform that you're used to.
This is where Linux will pull ahead of the likes of Sun. A lot of the new young developers are using Linux. It's highly available and free for download and modification, with no strings attached. You have access to a large variety of development tools. You get the chance to work on development teams, to make a difference in the community. You build your skill-set on this very attractive development platform that is Linux.
So when the time comes for these new developers to help decide what platform to use in their companies, what will it be? Linux.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
From the article:
The only operating systems that have credibility on Intel are
Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Linux. Which one of them does IBM
do? They don't own their own operating system that runs on the
volume platform. So they will continue supporting other people's
platforms. So will HP. While they have done a superb job of telling
the world that Linux is the future, but sadly it may be true for
them because they don't own an OS
It's sad that the former great Unix hardware companies (Sun, SGI,
Next, Apollo) had to live through times where their product was
commodotized to a point where they either had to compete with as a
softare company or die. SGI and NeXT didn't make it, and sun is now
having to sell their soul to make it as a software company.
I think IBM (and to a lesser extent, HP) see the big picture here -
the commoditization of software and re-emergence of premium hardware.
And if you think about it, isn't that how it should be? You can't
develop hardware in your basement, and if you could, you certainly
couldn't afford to mass produce it. It's a good thing: great
hardware running great open source software.
P.S. I'm astonished to see the number of Sun apologists on Slashdot.
They are on a slippery slope right now, the way they are conducting
themselves. I think Bill Joy saw it and got the hell out. I can sympathize - my first Unix experience was on a Sun, but I'm not about to let nostalgia rule over common sense.
I'm sure it was a coincidence though.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
If they offer to indemnify their customers, thats a signal that SCO might have a case. Sending the signal that no indemnification is necesary is best IMO.
Mr. Schwartz has now implied that Sun will indimnify it's customers. I think that everyone who runs Solaris call Sun and tell them they want total indimnification from Sun for any and all things related to Solaris and Sparc.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
But the problem is that Sun's competition isn't other UNIX vendors. It's all those people with x86 boxes out there that are loaded up with Linux (or, sadly, Windows). The reality is that Sun is taking a larger share of a smaller pie.
Sun makes money off sales of their own hardware. While their hardware is excellent, if a bunch of x86 machines can do the job more cheaply, guess who is going to win the battle?
Don't take my word for it. Serverwatch just came out with an article about it: "According to IDC, leading the market recovery in the U.S. has been x86-based (Intel and AMD) servers running either Linux or Windows operating systems. IDC anticipates the worldwide Linux server market will grow 34 percent, to $3.1 billion, in 2003 compared to 2002. The Windows server market is expected to grow 8 percent, to $15.0 billion. "
Sun is doing OK for now, but the long-term trends are tough to ignore. Check out the full article.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Or maybe the US system of punitive damages plus Juries gone amock is the problem?
Or take another example: The latest Power Black out! Cost 3-4B$. Maybe it was a computer somewhere that had somethng to do with it. Let's try and sue the software maker and see if he will settle.
Try the WTC attack. The insurance clearly states that anything of a similar nature within 72 hours is to be regarded as One Incidence and as such one payment. By no the underwriter is being sued for double as there were two planes.
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE CLAUSE THERE FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE. FUN?
Try and find a company that willing sells semiconductors into the medical sector? I could go on.
Your comment is clearly illinformed or maybe ment as a Troll.
Help fight continental drift.
I also understand your point about how important it is to keep mission-critical apps on a server OS you know you can trust. Solaris is absolutely the standard for these sorts of situations, and I think that only the most berzerk Linux advocate would argue that point.
However, just as many large companies are doing what they can to move away from reliance on mainframes, the world sits still for no OS. Linux has momentum primarily because it offers cost advantages that the bean counters can easily understand. While Linux is not yet ready for some of the applications Solaris is used for, it has evolved over the years from a mere "hobby" OS into a system capable of handling quite a variety of tasks.
Sun's philosophy seems to be that Linux isn't in their league, and it never will be. This sort of head in the sand mentality ignores the gains Linux has made over the last few years, and ignores its substantial momentum in the enterprise.
Sun may have nothing to fear from Linux in the high-end enterprise market that they claim as their own, but there was a time when none of the UNIX vendors had anything to fear from either Linux or Microsoft. Things change, sometimes pretty rapidly.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm an adamant SunBoy.. the room i'm sitting in right now is painted the color of a Sun box. I love Sparc and Solaris; I'm not stupid though. Solaris is a great industrial strength OS for heavy transactions and the like but Linux is simply the best tool for smaller jobs right now. IE: I would not run Solaris on my desktop, it's simply pointless, too expensive and not as open to debugging as Linux is. The majority of companies out there don't need high transactional items or they don't need to be constantly processing large dumps of data per minute or whatever. They simply want to host a website, or file server, etc etc. This is where the money is at, the bigger companies want flexibility which is what IBM is providing.. and Sun is doing nothing but making stupid comments like these left and right. Even if SCO were right Sun, what exactly does this do for your business?! You aren't offering a product strong enough in any category except high end right now and the middleware/small end stuff is being done alot better by IBM and Dell.
It's getting to the point where I'm looking to paint this room a different color, simply because of embarassment.
Stop making stupid comments, assess the market situation you're in currently and become flexible. I think it was a horoscope which told me to be flexible and to bend with the wind; otherwise I'd only have the option of snapping. The part that hurts the most is that Sun could really be raking up dough in this market especially with people who know Sun is the only company to do business with when it comes to support.
In other words, WTF are you doing Sun? Are you going totally isolate yourselves now? Another part of the problem is the attitude over at Sun.. We know Solaris is better in certain situations.. The old saying sometimes best in market is not best to market holds truth here.
Do something and do something now otherwise I have to paint this room Blue. Probably a light bluish fusia of some sort.. Or maybe ocean blue.. Nevertheless, it'll be blue.
Good grief, who is going to buy the weirdo Solaris for x86? All the software for sparc isn't available on x86 side. It's slow. Device drivers for major devices are missing; you'll need to be careful to run it on THEIR approved configurations. It's expensive compared to $0 for Linux (excluding support, which you don't get a meaningful level of that with just base OS purchase anyway). Don't get me wrong, I like Solaris: on a Sparc where it belongs , for things Linux can't do yet . Give Linux two more years, and all the high end datacenter features will be done & perfected.
It's the same as saying your are a Christian and you hate Jesus. Contradictory to say the least. Just like the German-American Bund in the 1930's claiming they loved liberty and freedom while striving for the overthrow of Democracy. Double agents. Plants.
Are you in doubt as to why they funded (still funding?) the SCO attack on Linux and OpenSource?
It has been apparent that in the post dot-com era Sun has lost touch with reality. Linux has smoothed off the edges, and is close to taking a direct shot at the encumbent operating systems. Sun still builds hardware based upon an instruction set that nobody cares about and lacks a clear exit strategy for a dying product line. Java has been their most successful venture to date, and they have been completely unable to capitalize on their invention as well as third-parties have.
I think Sun has some interesting technologies, and good engineers, but they lack the ability to bring it all together. They think that people care about their OS, when in fact they should dump Solaris and put everyone into Linux development and partner with AMD or PPC to build the same highly available, and manageable equipment with a more acceptable processor.
Living in the heart of a Solaris universe, it is hard to believe that it has come to the point where people are talking treason. "Do we have a Dell rep, I'd like to ask about RedHat compatibility?"
"In recent months, online trading company ETrade and retailer Amazon have announced a shift from Sun servers to Linux as money-saving measures to run their websites. Amazon said it saved $17 million in one quarter alone by using Intel/Linux systems."
"Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is moving its Solaris applications to Intel computers running Linux."
According to market research firm International Data Corp., Linux will account for 32 percent of server installations this year, up from 27 percent in 2001. Windows will jump from 41 percent in 2001 to 47 percent in 2002. Unix, on the other hand, is expected to drop from 14 percent of new installations in 2001 to 10 percent in 2002.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And now Sun and Linux devolve into a sad war of FUD and Counter-FUD...
It has been explitictly shown that they are funding them.
Sun was in a pretty shitty situation. They have been telling everyone for years that they have "full rights" to their UNIX. Except when they took a closer look, they really didn't. Oops.
SCO owned some drivers and other bits. Oh, and SCO was just about to go insane. So they paid them off in order to make their claims of "full rights" and "indemnification" retroactively true. They tried to put a good face on it by getting some stock options and calling it an investment.
Note that having SCO around doesn't really help Sun at all in the long term. IBM specifically got involved with SCO System V back in the 90s (Project Monterey) because customers were asking for something "more like Solaris". If/When SCO finally tanks, Sun will be pretty much the sole owner of UNIX.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It'd be a major blow, though.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
come with a crippled version of Sun's compiler, and offer GCC on a latter CD. Older Solaris software is designed to use their compiler rather than GCC.
Solaris comes with GCC in this respect as SCO OpenServer comes with pthread support. It's available, but is not installed by default.
(I'm speaking from heresay, I just run Solaris 2.6 and then only on one of my sparcs.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Sun's quality of support is excellent, and we're willing to pay for it.
The insanely-expensive and ridiculously badly-written vertical-market software we run on it, on the other hand ...
Diva's Law: The quality of software is inversely proportional to sticker price.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
They should emphasis with the Hardware.
Sun is all about hardware actually. Ranting about Linux this way is silly and unprofessional.
Solaris may rock on Sun hardware and may be more consitent than Linux. But the case is that in a market that is - believe it or not - dominated by an OS called Windows it's pointless to haggle over details.
It's x86 that sucks and if Sun would manage to get Sparc architecture more widely used, accepeted and payable they'd actually stand a chance. Sparc is to x86 what Linux is to Dos5/Win3.1. Honestly, think about *anything* that *really* is a pain on PC Linux and you'll find it to be an x86 problem.
The way Sun plays now, it's going more and more comoditiy hardware as usuall. We'll 'compensate' for Linux' 'unreliability' by clustering with boxen off the shelf of Wallmart and loadbalancing with software that you can get for free of the 'net in 5 minutes flat. And AMD and Intel will just keep churning the Ghz crank - and even make good money while doing so too.
And in the end we're gonna all rember those times when there once was an architecture that you could hotswap CPUs with but had a management so full of it they died even before all the rest.
It's a shame, 'cause I really would like to give Sparc a try one time. And believe me, if it's mainly Gnome/Solaris/JBoss or KDE/Linux/Zope or any other way - I really don't give a damn, as long as it is 'nix and I can get the stuff I use compiled. Coming to think of it, Sun actually could open source Solaris... But I guess the moon will crash into the pacific before that happens.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Sun's traditional market is in high-end servers in both business, government and R&D shops. They have lost a lot of those customers to Lintel servers.
Rather than waste their time trying to push Java on the desktop, what they should try to do is leverage their excellent support and service infrastructure to specialize in openMosix cluster and thin client technology.
I know they are trying to push some sort of Sun thin client architecture, but people are not interested in massively expensive Sun proprietary hardware. OpenMosix clusters may be exactly what it takes to bring Sun back online. Because of support, security and power consumption issues, thin client is really coming back with a vengence.
But people do not want slow Java-based thin client architectures. If they really wanted to kick butt they would make their own gigabit fiber or fiberchannel backplane and then have Sun branded cluster modules that plug in or they could work standalone. Something about the size of the old Sun IPC.
And if they were really smart they would partner with SGI or something to crank out an elegant 2D/3D thin Station. Something that talks both X and Citrix and Tarantella. They could get SGI to bring back the awesome 1600sw display (albeit with a DVI interface) and market it as the ultimate thin client solution (maybe even with local processing power).
For some reason I don't think its going to happen. Maybe now that Bill Joy has exited stage right he could play the innovator and show Sun the error of their ways.
Sun & Schwartz - playing the role of the Emperor, egotistical and proud. (He was intially scheduled to play nilatS, Stalin in reverse, because Sun seemed allied with the forces of freedom in the beginning but now is working with Hitler. Besides, Stalin was never considered part of the Axis Powers.) Believing the Sun rises and sets on him and his empire, he makes alliances with Mussolini and knows full well that sooner or later he'll have to deal with Hitler. Like Hitler, he believes that "There can be only one."
MS & Gates - playing Hitler and out to own the entire world, including those territories of Mussolini and the Emporer, no matter what laws are broken or who gets burned. His Panzer Cash units, having done their work in America, are burning trails of greed and deception throughout Europe, Asia and Down Under, but legions of resistance fighters around the world, under the symbol of the Penquin, are beginning to reverse the fortunes his Panzers have brought him. Will he be able to subvert all governments and politicians, using his DMCA and Patent Rockets, into making freedom illegal? His intial success with the DOJ, snatching Victory out of the Jaws of Defeat, seem to indicate so, but losses in China and some cities around the world indicate another outcome.
Will Hitler succeed in emerging as the Lone World Dictator, errecting Iron Curtains around the Internet and PC hardware, with all access points guarded by DRM chips?
It's a true Cliff-Hanger! Only time will tell.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
First off, I've been in the trenches as a UNIX admin for a long number of years. I admit that Linux is great, and that it has a future. But guess what I run at home? Solaris 9! And both on SPARC and intel. Why? I took an AMD 1700 XP machine bought at an equivalent of european Wal-mart and installed Solaris 9 for intel on it with no glitches. Was able to go to mom & pop store down the street and get a cheapo 100Mbit EtherNet card, download 3rd party drivers from the Net, then download XFree86 package for the gfx accelerator and finally download another 3rd party driver for the integrated audio. And guess what? All for ZERO, as in NADA, ZILCH USD!
If this reminds anyone of Linux (and it should!), please raise your hand!
And I have a PC-bucket with a TRUE enterprise operating ENVIRONMENT for the cost of one EtherNet card!!!
If enyone asks, the OS was free. But otherwise, it costs a mere $20 USD, which is cheaper than most enterprise Linux distros! And much more robust (Linux zealots, I know what Linux is capable of and how it works as I admin it, so give me a break.)
This thread is actually from yesterday, and my ;). Basically that Sun's execs may be clueless, however they are contributing to FOSS despite their perhaps dubious intentions, and in the end, their contributions are making the world a better place for FOSS.
highly unmodded comments about it still apply
"If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?"
Backwards. If the issue is a non-issue, why would IBM indemnify their customers? It's like asking IBM to indemnify a customer against tripping and falling because they fail to tie their shoe. It has nothing to do with IBM or the software/services the customer is being sold, so why would IBM indemnify their customers against it? IBM is not an insurance company.
It's all just FUD by Sun, but it always amazes me how these guys around the industry can spew this nonsense that's not only wrong, but completely irrelevant and, well, nonsensical. There's just no logic behind it at all; you look at it and go "huh?" Really makes you wonder what it takes to succeed in business. Seems to be more luck than anything; it's obviously not brains. And luck only lasts so long.
Sun is scared of the Linux progress on as well the server as the desktop systems.
.. you guessed right Linux.
.. you guessed it Linux.
.. if we want to keep them .. YES.
Where I work we are looking into using Linux on the Desktops with vmware installed to run different OS:es. Windows and Linux mostly. This is to Lower costs.
The users running Unix cad-stations are also looking into replacing HP-UX/Solaris and AIX with
On the servers were looking into replacing our database machines that runs on AIX/Solaris and HP-UX with
Now, why? Because it is a customer demand/wish. I work with outsourcing and the customers are getting more and more cost-aware. What are they doing to lower the cost? They look at alternatives for example Linux. They ask us if we can set this up, what should we answer? Well
I really HAD another userid
I also think that there are a lot of 'toys' out there helping to make a profit for businesses, and they're doing a damn fine job of it without a proprietary OS running them. If $2K-$5K stand-alone servers, rack-mounted hardware for less that or $4K-$10K, or even yesterday's workstations with a few hundred in upgrade parts can run today's file/backup servers, web servers, and SOHO mutlifunction servers, then more power to those fortunate people.
Not everyone needs enterprise-class systems to make their money and/or get their tasks done, much to the disdain of people selling enterprise hardware and enterprise software of both proprietary and opensource origin. I know I'd sure love to have a $8,000 Sun Blade 2000 workstation or an Enterprise-ready Sun Fire 15K starting at a cool $861,330 (up to 106 UltraSPARC III Cu processors). However, much to my disdain, it ain't going to happen in my work environment nor at home (except maybe that $8K Sun Blade 2000; to hell with it, I'll sell the car and take a bus to work ;-). For me and for many people out here, it's about dealing with what is possible, not with what is buyable, and not just in terms of using for private use.
Looking at it from this view, paying RedHat or SuSE for professional versions of the otherwise free software and being able to use that software as I see fit, such as installing on more than one system or using third-party software to get some enterprise-level functionality out of them like small-scale - ~1000+ people - mail and groupware functionality, is a great option for anyone to have.
Then later, who would you want to give your money to when fortune comes and the business then justifies/demands enterprise-level computing? The company(s) who made it possible in the first place or the ones that told you to stop dreaming and to come back when you have the cash in hand? Maybe the demands of the business will require something the latter offers that is unique or special to it, but my bet is with the former.
According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.
No you don't. I don't know what internet you browse but on mine anyone can download redhat 9 for free from a couple of pretty fast mirror sites. Including "enterprises". You're thinking of something else I bet.
"They make second rate hardware that is over priced and underperformed
Anyone that has used Sun hardware would not say this. Tell us about your experience with Sun."
I use Sun hardware, and I agree. It's overpriced and it's slow. We paid something like $10K for a single processor box a year ago, that doesn't have the performance of an AMD or Intel high end desktop solution. We're switching to Linux on AMD boxes as soon as our cad tools have linux support, which is very soon.
Why does SUN keep trying to go after Microsoft's desktop market instead of concentrating on their strength (Java, Enterprise Servers). It seems we have seen this before, Network Computers anyone? McNealy seems to be blinded by a jealous hatred of Bill Gates. He didn't beat Bill with the NC and now he's going after him with a (very similar strategy). He will loose this one too and maybe bring SUN down for good.
I would have seriously considered the Java Desktop System, if it weren't for two things: Schwartz talking like a lawyer (indemnify, purloined...) and no linux on servers.
Saying Linux is not server grade is patently false, and makes SUN look foolish, I fear they don't have a grip on reality and I would be divesting all of my SUN equipment for fear of their impending implosion.( If I wasn't frictionally unemployed).
That's totally out of touch with what the analysts are saying. Here is one of many examples:
"The [Forrester] report says that three powerful forces will cause Linux to tip in 2003 and sweep new Unix installs out of the datacenter on all but the data tier by 2007. These forces are Unix reliability at Intel prices, falling technology barriers, and commercial support from high-tech giants. "Proprietary Unix on RISC will all but disappear by 2007," the report predicts."
Source
I'd imagine interested third parties would help fund an OOo development fund. Redhat, SuSe and Mandrake to name three, and no doubt there are others who have an interest in a cross platform Office Suite (Possibly QNX, and maybe YellowTab)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I don't know a link, but I think Sun needed more than 3 (three!!!) month for an average patch!
Think about it!
NoSuchGuy
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
why should they offer indemnification for linux if they dont offer it for windows either? whats the point?
It's only a matter of time -- and not a very long time at all -- until free open source solutions will replace or strongly compete with proprietary solutions in all but the most peculiar of applications, and even there they had best worry.
Does Sun really believe that they can, in so far as they may now, maintain any technical superiority at all? They can not, not with big money funding the development and deployment of free open source solutions.
In a few short years, either Sun will change its tune, or Sun will join SCO in the gutter.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
I just completed a stint at a large western telecommunications company that was a Solaris/Oracle shop. With Oracle's new commitment to Linux, they are now re-evaluating their need for expensive Sun boxen. If this account goes the way many of my other accounts have gone, Sun is looking at losing yet another large customer.
It's spelt 'losing'.
This is an Ugly day for SUN. A sad day. Enjoy your ride on the FUD train because it will not last.
No one is going move from one closed, proprietary solution to another one. So if this is your strategy to get some MS customers, you are fried.
You have/had an opportunity to be part of something great. This is your response? Bad leadership kills companies quickly. You are barely holding your own because you still choose to follow the old proprietary model for UNIX failures. Why? Scared?
The world came together to build a free unix clone because it didnt trust either MS or the proprietary unix vendors. And having tasted freedom, it will never allow one company to dictate terms to them again.
You have embarrassed your company and its stock-holders. I only hope you find your way before your company folds.
You cannot compete with your attitude. You dont support as many devices, software platforms, or computer platforms as either Windows or Linux or Mac.
Come with us if you want to live.
He was right - 8 or 9 years agao. What a fucking moron.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price.
Does that mean Sun will pay you to use Solaris?
... physical drive failures are handled graciously by ODS or Veritas Volume Manager (something similar, as easy to administer as in Solaris, is sorely missing in Linux).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's not $95 per machine. It's $95 for the media kit which you can install on an endless number of machines.
Both Linux and Sun really getcha on the support contract.
Sun practically invented the client-server paradigm (or popularized it with Sun workstations), this was long before MS even put TCP/IP drivers in their OSes and when Apple was offering AppleTalk as their network solution.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
May the schwartz be with you.
Sorry, couldn't resist...
First, stop drinking IBM's kool-aid. Are your memories that short? IBM was a corporate monster before you had Microsoft to complain about. Forget their friendly facade at present, they're not your friend, even though it may seem so. Like Sun, they do some good things for the community, but I wouldn't say it's been nearly to the extent that Sun has. Stop and think about it. Sun in part, or in whole, gave the world OpenOffice, XML, Java, massive contributions to GNOME, and a vigorous voice against hijacking/breaking open standards as Microsoft was oft to do. Sun's never been cheap, but they've been the friendliest UNIX vendor out there, and fighting the good fight. So they've fallen off the horse competitively. So what if they're endorsing Solaris over Linux -- it only makes sense. They do have a better product for the kinds of tasks that business environments require. If you don't think so, you have to stop smoking crack. You can brag about your webpage which runs on RedHat and hosts your blog, but Solaris is inherently predictable and trustable in critical situations. That costs money, but less money than it takes when shit goes wrong. If you run Linux, you have to test everything like mad -- because of the nature of open-source and the way things change and break. With Sun's stuff, they do a massive amount of regression testing. Much of the testing burden you'd have to do yourself is gone. Before you think you know so much, examine the realities of business and what Sun has done for everybody, and the industry as a whole. Everyone conveniently forgets all of this in the midst of their Sun-bashing.
I won't pay to download the ISOs of Mandrake 9.2 either, when it arrives. I will send money to Mandrake (and some of the FOSS projects that they wrap) because I think they deserve it, not because they threw me over a barrel and demanded it. Yes, even if some of their advertising references someone other than MandrakeSoft now.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
They make second rate hardware that is over priced and underperformed
Anyone that has used Sun hardware would not say this. Tell us about your experience with Sun.
I must respectfully disagree.
For uniprocessor boxes, the price/performance of a Sparc is not competitive at all.
There was a time, when the Alpha was slowly rotting, that Sparcs were heavily used in the physics community. But Lately, I see more people buying new Apples than Sparcs. (PS: I don't see very many Apples used for work (I see plenty for desktops though))
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
"IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?"
I don't know, Sun, why don't you indemnify your customers against any IP infringements in Solaris, should they arise? Perhaps you'd like to point out exactly where in your contract I signed with you two years ago that says we will be protected. I have news for you: it doesn't say that anywhere.
It's this sort of lies coming from the Sun camp that made me already decide to migrate to Linux as soon as I can get the budget pushed through for F'04.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Linux has no chance on the desktop without a top-quality office suite, and Sun Microsystems has a bunch of paid developers making sure we continue to have one.
So before you wish for the death of Sun, think about this:
- Linux kills off Sun
- Without continued development of OpenOffice, Linux never reaches the mainstream desktop
- Microsoft eventually figures out a way to lock the Windows desktop to Windows servers (DRM?)
- Linux becomes useless on servers and is replaced by Windows
- Microsoft uber alles
Now, do you really think Sun is the enemy?Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Oh look, he's posting the same, tired old links he's posted in the past. Search back and you'll find comments.
Although his comment alliudes to "market share" it's actually revenue. Check out what the major media didn't tell you Sun's Marketshare Grows in Q2 2003. Indeed, revenue is down, but number of servers sold keeps going up.
What does this tell us? IBM is selling a large number of servers at a fat profit, yet nobody seems to notice. Everyone complains about how expensive Sun is when IBM is making record server revenues. Why is that?
Am I alone thinking that Sun is in exact point of choice: either to go after SCO and collapse to the final bancropt or ... what?
No matter what Sun is trying to do about Linux, its sales of Sparc hardware, expensive and unreliable, is shrinking and doing that very fast.
If Sun will declare the death of Solaris in a long term and long term plans of Linux/Sparc then those customers who has already run Sparcs, will trust to invest money further to new Sun hardware as in a long term they can run the same OS on both Sparc and x86 (cutting the cost of ownership). That the way Sun will collapse, but not shutdown. Potentially it can even get the market share from HP and SGI, as they still stick to their proprietary OSes.
If Sun will keep insisting on Solaris then it will collapse down to the ground and eventually shutdown the business. Customers already experienced with Sparc (like I do) don't want to come back to it being so disappointed by too high prices and too bad quality. New potential customers won't invest money to unknown propretary (and incompatible by many aspects) OS as they can get Linux on RISC from IBM cutting the total cost of ownership when maintaining Linux on all platforms acrosss the whole company.
I think Sun is making a strategic mistake: they insist on Solaris on Intel, where Linux with BSD work for 99% of installations much better in many aspects. Instead they should sell Sparcs with Linux helping customer to cut the TCO.
Less is more !
GrokLaw to SCO (and YOU)
.You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee." We do not feel we need it; the open source method protects us sufficiently, but it is certainly negotiable if we wish to pay for it.
2 01 22117265
"INDEMNIFICATION IS A RED HERRING
Anyone considering surreptitiously inserting proprietary software source code into Linux knows they would be quickly discovered and identified by name. That is your indemnification and your protection. We believe our system for policing source code is far more exacting and successful than your own.
On the subject of indemnification, we note that the software license which you propose to sell does not offer indemnification from lawsuits brought by other companies. And we think we should inform you warranties are permitted under the GPL: "1. . .
Proprietary software companies regularly file lawsuits against each other for copyright infringement, patent and trademark violations. Microsoft has been found guilty recently in several cases, but despite the fact that the GNU Project was begun in 1984 and Linus Torvalds began the Linux kernel in 1991, there has never been a claim of copyright infringement that we know of in all those years, let alone a finding of guilt. The record shows which method has done a better job of policing source code, which reveals that your call for indemnification is, to put it bluntly, FUD."
http://www.groklaw.com/article.php?story=200309
Are you a psychic? Seriously? I was one of those people who thought "Sun is not that bad", until I read this article. I didn't see this one coming. Anymore predictions for Sun : )
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
IBM is a weenie roast. they're money isn't where their mouth is
What's truely hypocritical is first SCO allowing to download a GPL'd version of the software that is now in question. And now saying it's theirs all along and now suddenly you have to pay for it... That's a true hipocrit.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
They have been telling everyone for years that they have "full rights" to their UNIX. Except when they took a closer look, they really didn't. Oops
Thats not right. Sun paid for drivers, as in getting more drivers, not for stuff they already had but didn't have clear rights for. It was probably the UDI project which could provide benefits for Sun for years to come. That should help make Solaris X86 easier to support.
You need to make some adjustments to your conspiracy theory.
The whole argument against Linux and open source is that the vendors have no warranty. Yet, what software actually DOES have a warranty?
Does Sun assume any responsibility for anything with Solaris or Java?
Does Microsoft assume anything with Windows?
No, they don't.
This is my sig.
It's time that we as a community realized this. While Sun does support a number of Open Source efforts, it does so only to further it's own goals and not to help the community at large.
:)
What else can we expect from a large company? All companies act in their own interests only.
Sun's take seems to be "here's our Linux, take it or leave it, but we really want you to use Solaris". Sun is just another example of a company using the community to it's advantage without really giving back.
Sun also realizes that while SCO is in trouble, it's next. Sun has watched in horror as Linux has beaten it out of portions of the server market. The VP can say "Linux doesn't have a place in the server" all he wants. The fact is that Linux has been sucessfully beating Solaris out of the server space for the past two years, hands down.
Sun needs to get a clue. They need to join us before they become the next SCO which starts bitching and whining and suiing everyone in site. Congratulations folks, we've made it to the big leagues. The home of litigation and name calling.
Yours truely. GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
At a constant $/tmpC, one IBM p690 is worth an order of magnitude more than one Sun E15K. So, IBM reaps the profits.
Sun has a serious problem in the shockingly poor performance of its UltraSPARC III.
The 'sun will fire 1000 employees' thing is bunk. That's yearly turnover, and they've been doing that for years, even during the dot boom years.
but NFS, NBD, the ACL implementation, PAM, the framebuffer layer, etc. were inspired by, based on documentation or source code released by Sun.
Lately not much has been contributed either way. (Java? Doesn't really count)
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
at least RPMs can quickly identify who is supposed to own a particular file (if any), and use md5sums for verification (instead of a 16-bit CRC).
And with rpmbuild and chkconfig, you should be able to roll your own RPMs for distribution even from source builds or custom directory layouts, with dependancy tracking and versioning.
pkgadd is a nice versioning tarballer, but other than that it's not much more advanced than the slackware package manager.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Is this guy in a hurry to sit on the retirement/downsizing porch with SGI?
- I am made of meat.
"The world came together to build a free unix clone because it didnt trust either MS or the proprietary unix vendors. And having tasted freedom, it will never allow one company to dictate terms to them again."
What a bunch of bullshit propaganda. The world came together to build themselves a UNIX clone because
a) Geeks wanted to run UNIX at home on their CHEAP (cheap, as in *CHEAP*) PC-bucket hardware
b) geeks didn't have the money (or the skill) to acquire true UNIX hardware on which to run UNIX
This is no "freedom and ideals" story as Linux zealots would like the rest of the dumbass masses to know them by.
The truth is, it NEVER was a matter of licensing and freedom. It was a matter of NOT HAVING THE MONEY to run UNIX on the HARDWARE, which was out of reach for the masses.
Do you need a remainder? Why did Linus Torvalds build the very first Linux kernel? Because he was a student WHO DIDN'T HAVE THE MONEY to buy the HARDWARE on which to run UNIX on.
LinUX. Linus UX, or Linus' UNIX.
How eager are you to forget.
And it should have stayed that way, if I said and wrote it twice, I've done it a million times: COMPUTING IS NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE FOR THE MASSES.
Meanwhile, PLEASE STOP writing idilic bullshit propaganda about freedom as in free OS and all the other dreamy crap.
Quote: "Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come."
:)
I thought when a star dies it expands in a super nova, and consumes all in it's path. If true, this means that before Sun shrinks, it will take Microsoft, Apple, IBM and other with it, leaving only the Commodore PET and the Apple I.
Actually, the more I think about it, that wouldn't be so bad.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
Fuck you and your attitude pricks. Can't wait to see that attitude when you receive your last unemployment checks, umbrella clowns.
its cheaper but we had to pay like a million to veritas for a desent filesystem as sun was not able to provide such. I have never payed a dime for my ext3 nor reiser before that.
Yeah, I kinda agree with that too. I was a little hard on SUN and my post was a little over the top.
I use StarOffice and should be more gratefull to SUN for their contributions.
It was a silly post, but that whole promise to imdemnify seems a little like they are trying to scare people. Perhaps that protection is necessary. I wish someone could explain it from a neutral position.
I cannot fault SUN for thinking their version of UNIX is good work. They have spent a lot of time on it and it supports a lot of people.
I will try to post less opinionated, more informatively in the future. Thanks for the critique.
"IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?"
What kind of lousy comment is that? I guess I expected better from Sun. They don't indemnify their customers nor does Micro$oft. Sure perhaps they do to the purchase price of their software but in a lawsuit of this nature (IBM vs. SCO) we don't see a single company out there protecting their customers in the fashion being 'claimed'.
It's a bunch of crap. Read the warrenty. It's clear as mud I realize however that's what they will base indemnification on (based on state laws of course)
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
This pretty much sums up the state of affairs at Sun.
Ptooo. These grapes are sour!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I wonder who came up with this indemnification line... I never saw Sun, MS, SCO or IBM offering this for any of their systems. Do they really?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
You have to look a bit deeper. Sun Solaris is a *great* product. The kernel has excellent multiuser, multithreading, and multiprocessor support. Linux is a bit lacking in the multiprocessor area, which is what the SERVER market wants.
Granted, given time, Linux will have good, maybe great, multiprocessor support. But Linux is bred on the desktops of single processor machines. There is not enough critical mass of 'free' multiprocessor machines to bring Linux up to the server level of Solaris. Now, I am not talking about 2 or 4 or even 16 processors in one box; I'm talking about dozens of processors. Solaris handles this with such ease; and yet is looks the same on single processor machines.
So what if Solaris is a bit tough to install, especially on Intel boxes? If you can't figure it out, perhaps you aren't ready to be a Unix administrator anyway.
Linux makes a good 'intermediate' system when you want to upgrade from Microsoft. But if you have applications that need a LOT of power, you have two choices; you can buy dozens and dozens of simple Intel boxes and split you application across all of them; or do it on a few big server boxes. Some applications work well one way, while others work better the single, multiprocessor server way. Make the wrong choice suffer. And remember, applications at the big server level are all mostly customized; not off the shelf. We are not talking about everyday apps like spreadsheets and word processors.
Don't get me wrong-- I love Linux. It is getting more and more mature every day. But it does NOT approach the sophistication on Solaris. That sophistication does have a price; there is more overhead. But it is well worth it, because Solaris scales so well.
You can take this from an instructor who has taught the Solaris line for over 10 years, and has used Linux for that same period of time.
People, you have to look a bit deeper.
Also: "IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?"
No, IBM is consistent, Sun is being hypocritical. Sun is using SCO to create fear so that they can make money from selling Linux by "indemnifying" their users. If SCO didn't exist, Sun would have to create them in order to make money from Linux (if they aren't actually one of the sponsors of SCO anyway).
Here is another quote from Sun's Schwartz:
Sun Executive Vice President of Software Jonathan Schwartz told an audience here at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday to worry more about the quality of their code than the software licenses that govern it.
This is exceptionally bad advice. Open source developers always need to worry about software licenses first. The SCO lawsuit has demonstrated that again very clearly.
Both what Sun is doing with SCO and what Sun is doing with Java/JCP is to try and make open source software somehow dependent on Sun. In the case of SCO, they are trying to make Linux into a Sun commercial product with the argument that it may not be legal unless you buy it from Sun. In the case of Java, Sun is trying to replace Linux APIs and toolkits and make their own proprietary platform an essential requirement for running any software.
And that's not where it ends either; if you actually read the Sun licenses attached to Java, the Java specifications, and the JCP carefully, you'll see that open source projects based on them may well end up under the control of Sun.
Don't trust Sun: Sun and their policies are a huge threat to open source. And what makes them particularly dangerous is that, unlike Microsoft, many people don't understand how dangerous Sun really is.
Meanwhile, continue to try to commoditize hardware by pushing Java, even though you are a hardware company and that's the last thing in the world you should want.
You don't understand Sun's Java strategy. Despite all the talk of openness and the smokescreen of the JCP, the cold hard fact is that Sun owns Java: they own the patents, they control certification, and they own the only implementations of key parts of the platform, like Swing.
Every Linux or Windows programmer that uses Java is directly or indirectly under Sun's control. And that is Sun's goal and purpose with Java.
then you'd think they'd be supporting more Linux installs.
only an old dinosaur of a company would think that it's better to fight the inevitable than to leverage it for their side.
--cyberdogx