Sun Gets Open Source Into NSW Government

lplatypus writes "ZDNet Australia reports that Sun Microsystems has "has cleared a place for its Java Enterprise System on the NSW government's software shelf, continuing its campaign to weaken Microsoft's monopoly over the desktop." The Age clarifies that Sun's offering includes open source components such as Linux, Gnome, Mozilla and Evolution. Another article is at Australian IT, or see Sun's press release."

Comments

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[citog]

Wrong on both counts. Congratulations.

Madhatter for free?

[batura]

One of the things I haven't been able to figure out (probably haven't looked hard) is if MadHatter is going to be avaiable for free download. I know Sun is trying to make a little money off of corporations (that 100/year/user thing), but what about the rest of us?

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the software in it is free, except for staroffice which you can buy from them if you want to (or use openoffice). Aside from the lame gnome theme it really is just suse linux or something. In terms of desktop GUI consistency it actually looks a lot worse than, say, the latest redhat releases: there is no attempt to unify the gnome, mozilla and staroffice appearances (this despite the fact that if they would just set mozilla to use the classic theme, it will try to assume the gtk look -- no, all their screenshots are using modern).

But as to the product itself, knowing sun, i'm sure it won't be, and they probably won't even make it very convenient to buy it unless you're a huge corporation, given their "open source strategy" of late (repeat verbatim whatever SCO's latest claim is, make sure everyone knows how much better solaris x86 is than linux, sell linux machines anyway).

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

No, it won't be, at least for this first release.

Java Desktop System, aka Mad Hatter, is built on top of SuSE Linux Desktop 1.0. Since SLD is a non-free distribution, Sun hasn't secured the rights to put it up for download.

Right now JDS is integrated into the basic install process along with the branded SuSE distribution, therefore it is not available as a separate add-on CD like Ximian Desktop 2.

I'm not saying it never will be able to do something like this, only that this initial release will not. In the future it may be possible download in some form when JDS runs on additional platforms.

Of course, you can build a nearly functional equivalent using whatever Open Source OS you wanted along with the various desktop softwares. Some (not all) of the things you won't get will be:

* The Evolution Sun ONE Calendar Server connector

* The "Blueprint" theme / look / feel

* Various improvements to each of the software modules (unless you incorporate the Sun patches which have not yet been incorporated into the main project trees ... and yes, Sun does submit back as required)

* Improved Internationalization / Localization (though this first release will have limited improvements here)

Also, it's $50/year/user, but to get that pricing you have to have a Java Enterprise System (JES) subscription (which is $100/user/year, making it $150/user/year for JES + JDS).

There is a separate JDS shrinkwrap pricing model which is $100/system/year ... that's per system, not per user, so it may be more beneficial in some situations and less in other.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[mcrbids]

It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.

What a crock.

If it was more productive to voice than to moderate, there would be no need for moderation!

The purpose of moderation is to improve the s/n ratio. (Signal/Noise - an engineering term from radio commonly translated to posts on Internet forums)

While there needs to be a minimum amount of feedback, as soon as that minimum is reached, it's just as important to moderate the posts to ensure a reasonable, high quality of material.

I don't view one as more important than the other, I view them both as fairly equivalent.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Kenja]

The purpose of moderation is to improve the s/n ratio.

Remember kids, noise is anything you don't want to hear or don't agree with while signal is the sound comming out of your backside.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

Erm, it's offtopic, but ...

It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.

If it was more productive to voice than to moderate, there would be no need for moderation!

1: You have to have people voicing opinions before you can moderate them. Therefore hierarchically voicing -is- the more important aspect as moderating would exist without it.

2: I didn't say it is not useful to moderate, only that it is -more- important to provide input (which assumes you have some form of input).

3: Part of my purpose with the signature is to get people to converse since I don't need to be mod'ed -up- as my karma hit it's limit a long time ago and if they are going to mod me -down- I'd rather know why (and unless I go on a bunch of sequential tirades a few down mods isn't going to affect my karma status anyway) ... it is more constructive to know why someone disagrees with you rather than to only see a general categorization of said disagreement.

4: Since most people at any given time don't have mod points and no one except perhaps the administrators have mod points all the time, it would appear that at least someone else agrees with me, otherwise we would all have mod points all the time.

5: It's a freaking signature ... but at least you voiced about it instead of moderating ;)

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

s/would\ exist/wouldn\'t\ exist/

twice in 24 hours with the need to sed myself ... time to take a break.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

*rofl* the parent to my post got mod'ed up for being insightful even though he was offtopic, I got mod'ed down for replying and pointing out that it was offtopic. Heh, so of course this will get mod'ed down, too.

There needs to be a way to voluntarily post at a score:0 offtopic without being forced to be anonymous (since posting anonymously I'd be accused of trying to save karma points).

Re:Madhatter for free?

[stu_coates]

Also, it's $50/year/user, but to get that pricing you have to have a Java Enterprise System (JES) subscription (which is $100/user/year, making it $150/user/year for JES + JDS).

What's not immediately clear is the fact that you must license 100 users as a minimum, making a minimum investment of $150,000/year! I spoke to Jonathan Schwartz shortly after all of this was announced and he confirmed the minimum requirement, but didn't rule out changing (reducing) it in the future.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Darth]

It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.

well, i'll disagree with this statement as an absolute statement.

There are plenty of replies that do not add anything new to the topical conversation (off topic posts, flames, etc). Moderation, at least some of the time, reduces this "noise" and increases the value of the topical posts.

So i would say that moderation, when used for it's intended purpose, is arguably more valuable than replies.

I do agree that posting opinions is important, but i think it's better to have no replies than 100% noise threads that waste everyone's time.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

More off-topicness ...

It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.

well, i'll disagree with this statement as an absolute statement.

I don't see how the phrase "it is more productive" can be considered an "absolute statement" ... the "more" is a quantifier. If I had said "it is always more productive" then I could see this. I was never imagined I needed to add a qualifier like "it is (sometimes | often) more productive".

There are plenty of replies that do not add anything new to the topical conversation (off topic posts, flames, etc). Moderation, at least some of the time, reduces this "noise" and increases the value of the topical posts.

Of course, I agree 100% with that statement. I thought I even said so in my reply but just to be sure I'll agree with that again.

So i would say that moderation, when used for it's intended purpose, is arguably more valuable than replies.

More valuable than noise response (as noted in your next point), yes. But I never asked for noise, spam or useless responses that are only crafted for response sake. See below.

I do agree that posting opinions is important, but i think it's better to have no replies than 100% noise threads that waste everyone's time.

You mean like this one? ;) Actually, this isn't pure noise, just off-topic but I think a fairly worthy debate on the process that is slashdot.

And while I would agree that a lack of any content would be better than 100% noise threads, I never advocated noise threads. Surely asking for "thoughtful opinions" can be seen as asking for replies that are useful and not "noise"?

Implicit in a request for "thoughtful opinions" is that one is definitely not asking for mindless chatter. If a person doesn't have an opinion created with aforethought, I have no problem with them not saying anything at all.

With the limited number of characters in a /. signature (and it's just a dang signature for everyone's sake) there is no way to capture this entire train of thought ... but surely the language is subtle enough that it should need to be spelled out in detail.

Unfortunately for all the people who are wasting mod points and time on this thread I'm having to work late for a deadline and this is proving a useful mind-break in between edits ... otherwise I swear I'd let it die ... probably will after this one since if anyone reading this feels I haven't made proper counter-points by now, they probably never will.

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Jahf]

and one more sed just for insomnia's sake ... and I swear I previewed it twice just to avoid this ...

s/that\ it\ should need/that\ it\ should\ not\ need/

What the hey ... I've gotten a score:5 comment tonight ... the various -1: off-topics I get from this thread should just about cancel it out (except that my karma was already capped, so the +4 didn't add to it while the -4 will lower it ... karma's a bitch ... useless but a bitch :)

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Cherbonnier]

Discussion of cost is premature. Wait until release. Sun has to figure highest low-price necessary to achieve market-penetration goals. To get 'serious' market penetration, they may have to introduce Madhatter at below cost and ratchet-up fees later, once people "are hooked."

Re:Madhatter for free?

[Darth]

I don't see how the phrase "it is more productive" can be considered an "absolute statement" ... the "more" is a quantifier. If I had said "it is always more productive" then I could see this. I was never imagined I needed to add a qualifier like "it is (sometimes | often) more productive".

without the qualifier, i assumed you meant always.

Of course, I agree 100% with that statement. I thought I even said so in my reply but just to be sure I'll agree with that again.

you may have and i just missed it or forgot about it when replying. It was late when i posted that.

You mean like this one? ;) Actually, this isn't pure noise, just off-topic but I think a fairly worthy debate on the process that is slashdot.

yeah. i considered that when i was replying, but decided the off-topicness of it was mitigated by the fact that it's a constructive conversation.

And while I would agree that a lack of any content would be better than 100% noise threads, I never advocated noise threads. Surely asking for "thoughtful opinions" can be seen as asking for replies that are useful and not "noise"?

well, from the point of view of a potential moderater, it might be more useful for them to moderate existing thoughtless threads than to post a thoughtful one. I agree that you werent advocating posting noise. However, I took your statement to be in the context of the behaviour of the potential moderator and not to imply that other posters would also only be providing thoughtful opinions.

With the limited number of characters in a /. signature (and it's just a dang signature for everyone's sake) there is no way to capture this entire train of thought ... but surely the language is subtle enough that it should need to be spelled out in detail.

yeah, it's just a sig, but it's a more entertaining topic than the other posts in this thread were at the time (and it was late at night). I'd prefer the sig files be longer, personally, but that is also a place where people abuse the system and ruin it for the rest of us.

Unfortunately for all the people who are wasting mod points and time on this thread I'm having to work late for a deadline and this is proving a useful mind-break in between edits ... otherwise I swear I'd let it die ... probably will after this one since if anyone reading this feels I haven't made proper counter-points by now, they probably never will.

hey, at least it is proving to be useful in some context. that's better than a lot of what gets posted to slashdot :)

I think we actually agree but i was reading your sig in a way that wasnt intended. I can certainly agree that if people only posted thoughful comments, the moderation system would be unnecessary.

I also agree that we should let it die now.

hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

Hmm... this would seem to be a good thing for Open Source... except, how Open Source is Sun's Java Enterprise System? Admittedly, this is the first I've really looked into it.

However, the company has to overcome heavy market inertia favouring Microsoft's proprietary server and client software product sets, particularly its ubiquitous office productivity suite Microsoft Office.

Why does everybody always point the finger at Office? While it's a pain in the foot to deal with those .doc files if you don't use it (converters and built-in support aside), the problem (at least where I work -- would this not hold true in most places?) is that our _vendors_ for our company specific software (in our case, Insurance, but friends of mine who work in the medical or automotive fields would say the same thing) base their solutions around Windows workstations and Windows servers. I can't very well ditch Windows in my Enterprise environment without a comparable solution to do what we need (manage an Independent Insurance Agency) in Linux/Unix/Apple/whatever.

Does anybody realistically see that changing anytime soon?

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun's Java Enterprise System is not at all free software, but it could be "open source".

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[invisik]

Yes, that is a huge stumbling block to implementing anything other then Windows at any given company. Everything has hooks into Word/Excel/Outlook-MAPI/ etc. There's just nothing you can do about it right now. There aren't any comparable apps on the other side of the fence yet. Yet. I, too, hope for change in that area.

-m

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

Yes, that is a huge stumbling block to implementing anything other then Windows at any given company. Everything has hooks into Word/Excel/Outlook-MAPI/ etc. There's just nothing you can do about it right now. There aren't any comparable apps on the other side of the fence yet. Yet. I, too, hope for change in that area.

Exactly. If Sun approached us with this solution I would say something like, "It looks real nice. Come back to us when you have convinced our vendors to rewrite their systems around it"

The really sad thing is that our solution would be much better engineered in Oracle (or even mySQL for peats sake...) as opposed to M$SQL They could even keep the Windows clients if they so desired (though I'd be just as happy to see them gone with the amount of money we pay MS each year).

I think the eventual way to fix this is to convince the vendors in question to look at other solutions is that they will save themselves (and their clients) money by using Linux/Unix based solutions (and to top it off the products would be more stable and secure) Since everything revolves around the bottom line, I don't see any better way of getting them to change.

Thoughts?

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these apps are classic client-server and could easily be ported to another RDBMS such as Oracle. However, the program logic is often in Visual Basic or Borland stuff and pretty much stranded on Windows.

"M$SQL" is appealing to this market because it can run simple applications without DBA support. Also, MS is willing to cut deals with app developers.

However, for shops that haven't bought MS-SQL licences, the DB Server can often cost as much or not more than than the application software. Thus, it's pretty much inevitable that these vendors will port to FirebirdDB or something that costs less.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that may be true but your argument works the other way too. If the NSW government uses Star Office for all it's documents then people who want to read files from the government will have to have Star Office / Open Office. Since the NSW government is a large organisation then those companies which deal with the government (which would be a lot) would also have to use star office and so on and so forth.

That's exactly how MS works - I have it and so you must too - but now change it around so it becomes - I now have changed to this so you must change to this too.

Given the size of governmental organisations they can set a trend in use simply because they are so big and interact with so many people.

This is very good for open source.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Malcontent]

You are locked in. You have no choice but to use MS products and upgrade when they tell you to.

I think that maybe other companies will look at your situation and decide that they don't want to be where you are. Keep posting on slashdot about the awful situation you find yourself in. It's too late for you but other people can learn from your mistakes.

Thank you for providing such powerful testimony to the evils of being locked in by one vendor.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Arker]

Hmm... this would seem to be a good thing for Open Source... except, how Open Source is Sun's Java Enterprise System? Admittedly, this is the first I've really looked into it.

It's a lot more Open Source than it is Java.

Except for shipping with Suns Java installed (not unusual,) it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Java at all. Branding. Spew.

I'm not involved with it so this isn't firsthand, but from what I've read it's pretty much a standard Linux desktop distro, with a Sun theme, and a few patches from Sun that haven't been accepted into the main trees yet.

Regarding the Insurance software, you wrote:

Does anybody realistically see that changing anytime soon?

Sure. I can't say exactly when, but sooner or later a company will realise that they can hire a few programmers to do what they want and dramatically cut their costs. Hopefully they'll base it on some Free Software that's already close to what they need, so it will be Free too, if not it may be binary only but they should try to recoup some of the upfront costs by selling it to others. Just a matter of who does it first, and how smart they are about doing it.

What specifically are you looking for software to do? My experience with Insurance software is quite out of date, but I remember a contact manager, datebook, a general accounting package with a very small amount of customisation, and a program to dial into the national headquarters and sync data. Oh, and a few scripts to tie it all together. Is that the sort of stuff you're thinking of? If it's anything like what I've seen it wouldn't take very many man-hours really.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[sinikal]

Since the NSW government is a large organisation then those companies which deal with the government (which would be a lot) would also have to use star office and so on and so forth.

Yes, but OOo is open source (obviously) I believe if Sun/Open Office became the standard, Microsoft would play nicely with it, so as not to lose any more of their market share than they would have to. The problem now is that while Sun/Open is trying to allow access to Word .docs, M$ is trying to make sure they can't.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Tuross]

Why does everybody always point the finger at Office?

Because Microsoft Office is the 6 foot, 400 pound, hairy, toothless grin, bald gorilla in the patched leather armour that keeps the prisoners in Microsoft's lock-in.

It's a sad fact of our current society that most businesses require 100% compatibility with Microsoft Office, and Microsoft have been smart enough to implement it with enough flaws that 100% compatibility is not desirable, let alone achieveable.

The target for the desktop market is not the underlying OS, its the applications on top of it. Educate everyone you know that OpenOffice (or whatever) is a viable alternative using every piece of advocacy you can think of (platform compatibility, license costs, license freedoms, success stories, etc). Once you've jumped these barrels and knocked the gorilla off, you can climb to the higher levels of the underlying OS and so forth. Donkey Kong is not invincible, neither is Microsoft (or any other vendor enjoying a lock-in monopoly)

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

It's too late for you but other people can learn from your mistakes.

Well, the sad thing is, I don't think we (or many of those in our shoes) made too many mistakes. We literally don't have a choice. We can either accept a prepackaged Agency Management solution (there are only three or four major vendors out there that are industry accepted -- we were also somewhat limited because we had to choose one that could import our old data -- without too much hassle -- from the old Novell setup), design and support our own (hint: this is well beyond our resources), or go back to a paper based office and rehire all of the people that the management system made redundant.

Naturally all of those nice prepackaged solutions are based on Windows, so whatta do? We aren't locked into one vendor per say (mind you, it wouldn't be easy to switch, but it's hardly impossible) -- we are locked into vendors that only use Windows based solutions, simply because there are no other viable solutions out there for our industry. The best we can do is cross our fingers and hope for change down the road, it can't stay this way forever.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[clem]

What specifically are you looking for software to do? My experience with Insurance software is quite out of date, but I remember a contact manager, datebook, a general accounting package with a very small amount of customisation, and a program to dial into the national headquarters and sync data. Oh, and a few scripts to tie it all together. Is that the sort of stuff you're thinking of? If it's anything like what I've seen it wouldn't take very many man-hours really.

Spoken like a true software developer. Take this advice with a grain of salt -- rampant optimism is a common trait among programming professionals.

That said, I think of this trait as a defense mechanism similar to what mothers experience when they think back on their last childbirth. If you had a perfectly clear recollection of how the last one went, be it pregnancy or a software project, you'd never want to go through another.

Also, it demonstrates the need for talented project managers to make sense of optimistic estimates. Good project managers are as rare as good developers and have just as much value to making a deadline.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[temojen]

...I can't very well ditch Windows in my Enterprise environment without a comparable solution to do what we need...

Does anybody realistically see that changing anytime soon?

This is one of the greatest strengths of Open Source; it's all about what you need. Why not collaborate with other businesses in your field to create the open source tools you need?

There are a great many insurance agencies around the world. This is an imense talent pool. Perhaps not all are technically skilled, but they at least have an intimate knowledge of the problem domain. Work together. Don't wait for someone to ride in on a white horse and sell it to you!

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

What specifically are you looking for software to do? My experience with Insurance software is quite out of date,

We have a complete Agency Management solution that tracks our customers (Personal & Commercial), policies they have (or used to have), billing, accounting, marketing, bah bah bah bah. Not to plug our vendor, because that's hardly the point of this discussion, but here they are if you are curious to learn more.

In theory, it could be rewritten to use Linux/Unix as a server platform (or anything for that matter), even keeping the Windows based client, since it's nothing more then a SQL based setup. In reality, even if they were to do this (or we were to design or contract our own system -- note: this is way beyond our resources), we are still stuck with Windows for the workstations, because of the large amount of third-party software (rating programs from the different carriers, our Choicepoint/Equifax access, which is mostly Internet based, but for reasons beyond me requires IE in a 2000/XP environment, our ID card generation software, etc etc etc) that is only available for Windows.

While most of my IT experience is in the Insurance Industry and service provider (used to work for several different ISPs), I'm sure this story is repeated no matter what industry you are in. And therein lies the problem. Anybody see it going anyway anytime soon? Are you going to tell the State of New York that they need to release the software to encrypt their automobile ID cards for Linux? (I already have and they didn't listen ;)

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just say I've worked on many Windows migration projects and I certainly recognize the problem.

Long term solution is browser/Java based interfaces. The pull in this direction isn't driven by interoperability, although that is a nice bonus, but the desire of software companies to make more money. I talked to quite a few small to medium sw houses and most want to be service providers, that is instead of just shipping cellofan they want to provide a web service, because it means moving up the value chain. Sun's Java Enterprise system and pricing model is targeting exactly this market and IBM and others are active in Web Service front.

Short term solution is using Citrix/terminal server. Think of it as containment.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

There are a great many insurance agencies around the world. This is an imense talent pool. Perhaps not all are technically skilled, but they at least have an intimate knowledge of the problem domain. Work together. Don't wait for someone to ride in on a white horse and sell it to you!

I could foresee this happening sometime. Though if I tried to sell it to my boss the response would be something like, "Umm... collaborate with our competition to create a new solution that we will give away when ours works fine for the most part?" I could see this happening in a lot of Industries sooner or later. Eventually they will tire of the crap products supplied to them by vendors with monopolies....

Or something will happen that results in a massive lawsuit and changes to the way the industries themselves work... if our MS SQL server crashes it's annoying and we lose money... if that Hospital's SQL server crashes and the Docs in the ER can't pull allergy information for that patient that just came in.....

Which do you think is more likely in our modern times? People setting aside their differences to work together or the latter scenario? ;)

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[overbom]

Why does everybody always point the finger at Office?

I point the finger at Office because of Outlook (and Exchange).

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent AC up. This is exactly the way it works. The government is the biggest customer around. Vendors don't want to R&D once for government and separately for private sector. Vendors want to R&D once and sell to everyone. The best return is on developing for the biggest customer. That's the customer everyone wants to keep happy. How widespread would TCP/IP and windows have been without the government using them? NSW just gave local suppliers reasons to develop for SunONE. DHS gave suppliers reason to continue developing for m$. Some supporters of the DHS giveaway say it will encourage the vendor to make its product more secure.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

Naturally all of those nice prepackaged solutions are based on Windows, so whatta do?

Did you try telling each of those vendors that you will pay more for their products if you didn't have to spend so much of your limited budget on m$ licen$e$ and B$A threat$? Did anyone else in your industry ever tell the vendors anything like that? If no one ever tells the vendor's marketing droids (not just the help desk clones or engineers) there's money to be made on other platforms, the marketing droids will never know that even one customer will buy a non-m$ version. They won't see the demand.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[t0ny]

Sun Microsystems has "has cleared a place for its Java Enterprise System on the NSW government's software shelf, continuing its campaign to weaken Microsoft's monopoly over the desktop

Does this mean that Sun will start using Java internally? Because they dont, in case you didnt know; it was too buggy, and they found it lacking in version control.

It may not be good enough for Sun, but its good enough to sell to governments!

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[ChrisRijk]

Except that, since StarOffice can read/write MS Office files very well, they could make available both StarOffice files and MS Office files, and accept both. StarOffice has filters for WordPerfect too, so they could accept such files too.

That gives people more choice.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Blackjax]

Yes. I work as a developer in the Insurance Software industry and a good number of companies seem to be moving to Java. I can't speak for Claims Processing but things like Sales Illustration and Benefit Query systems are being built around browsers and servlets. I've also seen Rating Engines developed to be embedded in EJBs and provide rates as a service via XML. What I haven't seen is a lot of new client side stuff being developed. The old desktop VB apps are being replaced. Now, I'm certain that some of the shift is probably towards .Net and the MS centric approach, but even that is an improvement over Windows specific software. Insurance companies are conservative beasts and move slowly, but the shift is happening.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Tony-A]

"Umm... collaborate with our competition to create a new solution that we will give away when ours works fine for the most part?"
Sounds counterproductive, but that is the strategy for survival. There is competition within a species and competition between species. While it is desirable to be the best within your species, the strategy loses if your species loses to other species.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[4of12]

governmental organisations...interact with so many people.

It's very good.

If a government agency sends out paperwork to vendors in a .doc file, they're implicitly requiring the vendor to pay for MS Word to decrypt it.

Governments shouldn't be needlessly forcing people to make such an expenditure.

With OpenOffice documents, the public at large is able to read documents without any hidden charges. Later, they may find that OOo provides acceptable performance for the price compared with MS Office and use it for purposes besides interacting with their government.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Threni]

Would it be techincally possible/legal for an organisation to buy Office and set up a server where documents could be posted and then returned in some other format? The only issue here as I see it is if the documents to be converted are confidential. I guess you could do this at the organisational level - one such server per company or educational establishment. Perhaps ISP's could offer this service, given that the documents may well be sent (unencrypted) through them in the first place.

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Shakrai]

Sounds counterproductive, but that is the strategy for survival

Don't get me wrong I completely agree with both of the proceeding posts. The problem is convincing others (mostly in Management and not even IS) of that. It's hard enough to get a senior IT guy who has bought into Microsoft's mantra of "Enterprise Ready" (and Linux not being) to allow you to use a Linux box as a simple NAT router/basic firewall, let alone convincing senior management (half of whom only learned how to use a mouse yesterday) that this is a "Good Idea"(tm). (Self-presveration note to attach: These comments apply to any medium->large agency or company and not specifically mine ;)

That said, I think it's only a matter of time before somebody gets onboard with an idea like this in our industry (and others), and when that happens we will likely be one of the first that jump onboard.

Thanks for the thoughtful discussion people! :)

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who worked several years for Sun, I can tell you that that statement is completely false. Java has always been extremely central internally.

However, they're pragmatic, just like anyone else. It's not the end-all-be-all solution for everything. That's the reason they're relaasing th Linux/GNOME based desktop instead of making some Java desktop thingy. Mind you, they already tried that. Remember the JavaStation? (your truly had the unfortunate task at hand to actually support the damn thing. fortunately not many were sold).

Re:hmm mostly good... but

[RogerWilco]

I don't know about the visual basic stuff, but using Borland is no problem at all.
Aside from using Kylix for Linux, or C++ Builder for Windows or Symbian,
there are all kinds of components that can easily replace the standard Borland stuff, if it does not fit your database.
I' ve seen quite large (100.000 lines) apps move from Access to Paradox to MySQL to MSSQL and vice-versa. It's not difficult to do.
I esp. like the ZeosLib. (it's on sourceforge somewhere)
(Open Source MSSQL, MySQL, PostGre, Oracle)

Sun will be gone or merged away in 5 years

[Anonymous Coward]

you can bank on them getting out of the hardware business first, dropping Solaris or open sourceing all of it, and then being merged out of existance.

Re:Sun will be gone or merged away in 5 years

[Anonymous Coward]

This goes to show how smart you are. Since Solaris build off Sys V they can't make it FOSS without SCO's ok.

Please bash something you have some knowledge of next time.

Re:Sun will be gone or merged away in 5 years

[Jahf]

Separate from whether it is a -good- thing or not, Sun has no plans to get rid of Solaris now or anytime in the predictable future. Java Desktop System is planned to be running on Solaris in the next 12 months or less (of course that could slip).

Getting into Linux does not automatically mean killing off established offerings. In this case it made sense since the current low-end and corporate desktop spaces pretty much demands Linux or Windows (I wouldn't call Mac hardware low-end due to cost nor have I seen OSX with major acceptance in the corporate space). Solaris continues to be the choice of Sun's high-end hardware customers.

That's actually one of the great things about JDS, by running on both with the same codebase and features for the core components (GNOME, StarOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, Java and to a lesser extent GAIM and some of the extra utilities) Sun's customers can get an abstracted environment that looks and functions the same whether it runs Solaris or Linux. Until they get to the system administration or power user levels the end-user won't need to worry about which system they are on.

While yes, that means in the near future that a customer could transition from a big expensive SPARC box down to a less expensive x86 PC without retraining skills, it also means the reverse. The reverse may not be as common as the original premise, but it still is a barrier removal.

The first release of JDS is essentially a standalone product with no more remote management or administration features than any other Linux distro. The next couple of releases afterwards are going to be geared toward making big deployments easier for larger organizations. As that happens the idea of switching to various other Sun solutions like SunRay clients and more powerful workstations becomes more plausible. Not required or locked in, just more plausible. If a company wants to only use x86 PC hardware, they will be perfectly capable of doing so. However having choices can't be bad.

Good for them

[dtfinch]

Perhaps their stock will go up in the coming weeks. If Sun does in fact have a future that doesn't end in bankruptcy or in the belly of some other corporation, then their stock price been seriously undervalued for quite some time now, at 1/20th of what it was in 2000.

Re:Good for them

[Shakrai]

Perhaps their stock will go up in the coming weeks. If Sun does in fact have a future that doesn't end in bankruptcy or in the belly of some other corporation, then their stock price been seriously undervalued for quite some time now, at 1/20th of what it was in 2000.

Or were they seriously overvalued like every other Tech stock was in 2000? (and not just dot-coms.... cellular carriers like Nextel come to mind)

Re:Good for them

[dtfinch]

I didn't mean to suggest that their stock would reach its 2000 levels, just that it will probably increase as a result of the initial success of their new product and pricing scheme. Their survival depends greatly on their ability to get out of the nearly dead overpriced_incompatible_super_servers_with_five_fi gure_per_cpu_licensing market, and their chances of doing it look a lot better than they did a couple months ago. They've have a lot of talent, and are finally refocusing it on more viable products and services.

Re:Good for them

[Shakrai]

They've have a lot of talent, and are finally refocusing it on more viable products and services.

True enough. I didn't mean to suggest that Sun was a worthless dot-com that deserved to die either :) I wish them well. Competition is rarely a bad thing, and anybody trying to reduce MS's marketshare deserves our respect.

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear OSS Advocate #946284,

Your comment regarding overpriced servers is incorrect. Please check out the entry level servers on their site. Also, how are they incompatible? And last, please show proof of the "5 figure per CPU licensing".

I'm sure you won't respond to this since you're dead wrong on all points.

Solaris Advocate #00004932

i greatly respect Sun

[polished look 2]

I received in the mail today a book entitled MDA Explained and I was somewhat suprised but certainly gladdened that the example code bits (at least the ones I've seen) are in Java. Plus there are lots and lots of people pulling for Java and now that I've been coding in it, I've grown to enjoy it.

In my opinion, Sun is one of those companies, like Microsoft or Oracle - a company that has many experienced and creative people as their employees and it is rather satisfying to understand that Sun has been providing people with a viable alternative to Microsoft for a long time.

Re:i greatly respect Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never thought of Sun as competing with Microsoft.

Sun tends to start where Microsoft ends, in the server market at least, while in the past they were a leader in the workstation market.

For companies that lose over US$1 million dollars per minute of downtime, Sun and IBM mid and main frame hardware is very cheap.

Many people dismiss Sun because they "currently" do not need such power. It's sort of like calling a Semi-trailer useless because a Toyota gets the job of bring the groceries done more efficiently.

Techies don't like Sun hardware because they are not in a position to rip into the hardware or software when things go wrong. Many don't understand why anybody would want processors which run at under 1GHz.

Accountants don't like Sun because the techies tell them they are getting ripped off.

But at the end of the day, whoever uses Sun hardware does not complain about uptime.

As for Sun and open source, don't think for a second that Sun has not FULLY tested all the software they will be puting the computers for the NSW government which has about 10,000 computers at the moment.

Re:i greatly respect Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, Sun can have the high-end. Just like their pals DEC, Data General, and Sperry-Univac.

Obviously even Sun thinks this is a bad idea, or they wouldn't be wasting their time releasing desktop software and generic Intel servers.

Re:i greatly respect Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

At what time did DEC make the largest, most powerful single system images boxes?

Good news

[obeythefist]

Good news for the open source pundits.

Most Australian state governments have very strong policies when it comes to tendering for services to "buy local". Of course, individual requirements for applications can specify certain dependencies, like use of Suns true Java.

Unfortunately, the tendency to buy local diminishes the input from a lot of the bigger IT groups.

Re:Good news

[mskeggs]

I work on a lot of Australian government purchasing tenders. The requirement to buy local tends not to extend to productivity or general application software.
The buy local requirements are usually fulfilled by investment in local business (like local help desks etc.).
In many ways an open source based solution is way ahead of Microsoft or similar as it allows direct local involvement (in Australia an example would be Samba, written by an Aussie -Tridge-) which results in a lot more local benefit that a Redmond closed solution.

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, I'm doing computer science in a university in NSW and our main UNIX servers (on SPARCs) run SunOS while some labs triple boot Win2k, Linux and Solaris. Since most of our code are to be compiled and checked on the SunOS servers and we use several Sun tools, there has been some interest by students to acquire Solaris under the free binary program.

Sun is very much alive in my uni.

Chip away!

[magiluke]

"...continuing its campaign to weaken Microsoft's monopoly over the desktop." Just keep chipping away. It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but every little movement counts.

Got so worked up ...

[Anonymous Coward]

forgot that this so and so might not know what the RTA is.

The NSW RTA is the "Road and Transport Authority" where the New South Welshmen you go to get their driving licences and register vehicles for use on public roads.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/

They have roughly 800 Java stations. Some of these Java stations take the photos which end up on the NSW driver's licences.

These computers have survived everything, from hackers to power outages. And the few that were stolen were no security threat, and absolutely useless to the thieves, which is another consideration when purchasing hundreds of terminals or computers.

Re:Got so worked up ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My 3270 can beat up your 3270!

Re:Explain This

[j0nkatz]

A canibal walked in to the canibal resturant and was looking at the menu...

Windows Administrator $2
Windows Developer $2
Solaris Administrator $2
GNU Hippie $16

The canibal asked the waiter, "Why is the GNU Hippie so fucking much?"

The waiter replied, "You ever tried cleaning one of those things?"

No, but you should see most of the improvements

[donscarletti]

Madhatter won't be free.

However Madhatter is largely based on GPLed software. GPL is (despite our BSD loving friends' statements to the contrary) an assurance that pretty much all of Madhatter will be free and "the rest of us" therefore will be able to enjoy any contribution that Sun Makes to Gnome or mozilla.

And it of course goes without saying that we will be able to enjoy the advancements in java that will occur when Sun integrates it more with the Linux desktop. (including the usage of GTK in java's UI allowing java programs to work better with GTK programs and even slightly better with QT based programs.

Re:No, but you should see most of the improvements

[pmz]

GPL is (despite our BSD loving friends' statements to the contrary).

For all the zealots, how about this compromise: release your software under both licenses. Oh god, the horror! People can feel safe under the GPL version and put the BSD version to real useful work.

Re:No, but you should see most of the improvements

[HiThere]

How about *THIS* compromise...release your software under the GPL, and offer to SELL BSD licenses. Why let them rip you off? Take a toll.

Re:No, but you should see most of the improvements

[donscarletti]

If one was to release their works under the BSD licence and the GPL licence, people wanting to "embrace and extend" would simply use the BSD licence, and we wouldn't get any of the protection that the GPL offers.

How is that a compromise? It sounds more like total acceptance of the BSD licence and usage of the GPL for show.

Re:No, but you should see most of the improvements

[pmz]

How is that a compromise?

From my experience as a commercial developer, my motivation isn't "embrace and extend" to take over the world, rather I'd like to integrate open source into portions of my code (typically in-house type stuff). BSD is pretty close to the public domain, and it allows a net global savings of work by allowing code reuse explicitly. For example, why spend a day or two trying to figure out base-64 encoding, code it up, and test it, when there is a free implementation just sitting there begging to be used (legally under BSD, illegally under GPL).

The GPL release would allow those people who depend on an untainted version to have it. It's sort of like Troll Tech's dual licensing of Qt, just the other way around.

Also, in practice, I don't know of a case where the BSD license has come back to bite the developers and squash their project out of existence. The biggest excersize of the BSD license's rights are by Microsoft (famous TCP/IP example, Services For Unix examples, etc.), and FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD are still around and kicking. The irony is that even after using BSD code, Microsoft still managed to make Windows suck.

I'm not really a zealot favoring either GPL or BSD exclusively, as I would choose a license based on my needs and intents. If I had a business selling software but not services, I would probably take Troll Tech's stance and offer the GPL for non-profit use and a proprietary license for business use. If I had developed a library that had no influence on my personal bottom line, I'd most likely offer it as BSD or even as public domain. And, if the software I sold eventually became unprofitable, I wouldn't hesitate to consider putting it under BSD, just to give people freedom to use it as it best fits their needs.

I think the main difference between GPL and BSD comes down to courage and faith, in a way. It is harder to release something under BSD, because it is sort of like sending a kid off to college. Some of the control is gone, but the potential outcome is greater for it.

Re:No, but you should see most of the improvements

[pmz]

SELL BSD licenses

You'd sell one license. It would only one customer to mirror it on line. BSD and GPL licenses aren't appropriate for generating profit from the software itself; the profit has to come from other sources, such as service, support, or some other value adding feature.

Sun needs more of this...

[Qweezle]

Sun has to get this sort of support, but from larger governments and organizations, if the stock market is to ever look upon Sun's stock(SUNW) as positive and solid ever again. Once upon a time, many may forget, but there was indeed a time when Sun was well over 60 dollars a share, and the stock market was beaming with joy at the little server company that could. Then, the econonomic bubble exploded, (or imploded, you could say), and Sun started to decline in spite of small innovations, their competitors became too heavy. Sun's new offerings, specifically the Java Virtual Desktop System, are very good looking, and I am a Sun investor at 4.07(now at 3.55), and I hope others may buy into Sun's [lucrative] price.

Re:Sun needs more of this...

[Strudelkugel]

I don't have a position in SUNW, because I don't understand their business model. Since you are long the stock, can you explain it?

Re:Sun needs more of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

this is still me, but I'm posting anonymously so it doesn't hurt my good rating. Well, I bought Sun in September, because of their releases, current and surely future. I trust the business model because of their ability to innovate, which always helps, but I am not an expert in their actual business strategy. I think they'll rebound in a year or two.

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[Anonymous Coward]

I was looking for jobs on Dice the other day and saw a place in NYC that has 13,000 Sun servers world wide. Thirteen thousand.

They also have 800 Red Hat servers.

Sorry guys, but until places like this get rid of their servers Sun is a far cry from dead.

Re:Explain This

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Neanderthal read Tom Clancy.

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[cduffy]

Err, you do realize that the "Java Desktop" is just what Sun is calling their desktop environment (consisting of Gnome, Evolution, and the like) which really has very little to do with Java at all?

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[CanadaDave]

Geez, I must really sound like a troll in that case. I've seen lots of screenshots and it did look just like linux...a typical redhat desktop or something like that. It certainly didn't look like Swing widgets. What a stupid name and a BAD marketing idea. They should have called it "Sun Linux". (Even though Linux is really just the kernel of course, but still this would SELL).

Sun and Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Where exactly does Sun stand on Linux? It seems they go from implicitly bashing it to toting it as one of their greatest assets.

Re:Sun and Linux

[HiThere]

With respect to Linux, Sun experiences a bipolar disorder.

More accurately, they always act in whatever way the person who's acting thinks is best...and many are strongly comitted to Solaris, while others want to save the expense of Solaris development. But effectively it's a bipolar disorder.

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[gl4ss]

nope.

calling it 'sun linux' wouldn't have been that smart, 'sun desktop system' sure, but there's no point for them to limit the system to linux(for future migration to any os they want).

general _users_ don't care *shit* if it's name has 'java', and sys admins and decision makers should be smart enough to look into their decisions under the skin(_should_ be, having the java in the name can swing the decision both ways with clueless retards).

if you want to check out a 'java desktop' check out jdistro

Go Evolution.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Australian free software developer, it's always nice to see your baby up in lights in an Australian context - regardless of how much it actually penetrates the market in practice.

Go Evolution anyway!

NotZed

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[G3ckoG33k]

On the contrary, Java is an already strong brand name which will survive for even longer now.

It's all about marketing, it's not about being descriptive.

Re:Explain This

[CoolMoDee]

Best sig ever!

Mozilla browser

[Pingular]

The article just says 'Mozilla Browser', I wonder whether this means Mozilla or Firebird?
On another (possibly related note), the front page of Mozilla.org is displaying the following message:
Mozilla Foundation Launches Mozilla 1.5, End User Services
We are pleased to announce new versions of Mozilla 1.5, the award winning Internet suite, and new Technology Preview releases of Mozilla Firebird (version 0.7) and Mozilla Thunderbird (version 0.3).
Maybe this and Sun's announcement have been timed so they purposefully coincide?

Is this a repeat?

[glenebob]

Wow, Sun is really busy today, what with all the flare ups and stuff. I wonder how Sun's stock is doing. Hot perhaps? Hmmmm?

Sun is evil! IBM is our Savior.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Sun. IBM is cool. IBM spray-painted penguins on sidewalks.

Sun is evil! IBM is our Savior.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, fuck Sun. IBM spray-painted penguins on sidewalks.

Here's a hypothetical scenario for your boss...

[temojen]

All else being equal:

• Company A is one of an ever-shrinking number of customers of a proprietary software company.
• Company B colaborates with hundreds of other companies in the field to create the software it needs
• Company C creates all of it's software in-house and keeps it secret.

Which company has the best long-term results?

Which do you think is more likely in our modern times? People setting aside their differences to work together or the latter scenario? ;)

You mean like Sun, SGI, and IBM all contributing to the Linux kernel?

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[Jahf]

Exactly why they chose the name they did.

Sun is trying to expand recognition of the new products by leveraging the existing recognition of the "Java" name and its association with Sun.

Naturally there are going to be plenty of folks who think it's just plain off-base, but those people already know Sun and Java in depth. The idea is to get into the minds of the people who aren't as familiar with either but who still have a low-level association and recognition of the names.

Java as a technology is still important and is being showcased in this product.

FWIW, I'm not saying pro or con on this decision ... there were a lot of long debates between various groups on naming. As one might imagine, "Sun Desktop System" as well as other options were all considered. However, Sun has decided across the board to use the "Java [variable] System" naming scheme for the software product suites (Java Enterprise System rebranding for the various Sun ONE components, etc). Essentially "Java" becomes the software brand (with exceptions like Solaris, which is a good thing since calling Solaris something like the "Java Operating System" would be REALLY bad and would also be exclusive of Linux) and "Sun" becomes the hardware brand.

It will take some getting used to, but at least it is consistent enough that it will eventually make sense and apply to more than just this one product as long as that consistency is retained for a long time.

Re:Explain This

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes definately no fucking sense, you fucking looser. I suggest immediate death to you and you're entire family. Seriously, their are times when ACs display a rediculous amount of stupidity, and this is one of them.

Re:Flame bait for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

To sum up: YOUR FULL OF SHIT

It's 'you're.' That's 'you're.' As in 'you are.' 'You are.' That is, if I wanted to say 'You are a fucking moron,' I might shorten that to: 'You're a fucking moron.' You fucking moron.

Re:Fark'n subject?

[cryms0n]

Oh man you fark people are here too, goddammit.

(croakur)

I have been noticing some strong cross-posting between Slashdot and Fark lately ...

Wrong math

[Bateman]

that's $15,000 NOT $150,000. If you only need madhatter it's 100 * 100 = $10,000

Re:Wrong math

[Jahf]

Except that if I remember right the minimum Java Enterprise System subscription is 1,000 (so the parent probably just typo'ed the 100 instead of miscalculating by a factor of 10). Therefore it is a minimum cost of $150,000 for JES + JDS.

For a large corporation with a large deployment it is not a big deal.

For SMB (small / medium business) or home users, it obviously makes the $100/desktop much more attractive since there is no minimum order under that pricing model.

Additionally the $100/desktop is the full retail price. Obviously the way the world works there are price breaks and discounts depending on the size of the deal (but at a certain deployment scale the discounts will be less cost-effective than the JES + JDS subscription cost).

Re:Wrong math

[stu_coates]

It was 100 as a minimum... that'll teach me to attempt math before my 6th expresso! ;-)

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is very much alive in my uni.

And a lot of others. Though that's probably cold comfort when they're looking at their stock price.

two edged sword

[penguin7of9]

Sun is using open source to fill in big gaps in their software offerings, but what they sell also has a significant proprietary component. In particular, a lot of the Java-related products are proprietary.

On balance, this is probably still good for open source and open systems. But we have to be wary of Sun: they are not an open source company, and many of their efforts are not in the best interest of the open source community.

Re:two edged sword

[Jonboy X]

"But we have to be wary of Sun: they are not an open source company..."

And what, pray tell, is your definition of an "open source company"? One that owns no intellectual property? Could you give an example?

Yeah, so Java ain't GPL'd. Big effin' deal. The specs are freely available to anybody who wants to implement 'em. So Solaris ain't free. Neither is AIX.

"...and many of their efforts are not in the best interest of the open source community."

Yeah, they're a publicly-traded company, just like IBM or RedHat. They do what's in the best interest of their stockholders.

Be "wary" of ill-informed blanket statements...

Re:two edged sword

[penguin7of9]

And what, pray tell, is your definition of an "open source company"? One that owns no intellectual property? Could you give an example?

Defining what is an open source company is hard. But a company whose officials refer to open source software like Linux and Gnome as "open source crap" and that tells programmers "not to worry about licenses" does not qualify as far as I'm concerned. Furthermore, Sun's business interests clearly are not aligned with the overall success of open source: Sun's value proposition is their proprietary software, Solaris and Java.

Sun is using open source software to harm competitors (e.g., with OpenOffice), and sometimes the open source community benefits. But Sun's business model is solidly rooted in proprietary software.

Yeah, so Java ain't GPL'd. Big effin' deal. The specs are freely available to anybody who wants to implement 'em.

No, the Java specs are NOT "freely available to anybody who wants to implement 'em". First of all, many aspects of Java are covered by Sun patents and even if the specs were free and unencumbered, you could still not implement them without infringing on Sun's patents. But I suggest that you actually read the license to which you have to agree when you download many of the Java specs: it explicitly prohibits you from just going off and implementing them; there are very specific conditions and obligations attached to implementing Sun's specs, which are incompatible with open source licenses. That is one of the things that makes Sun such a bad citizen. And it is even worse that they (apparently succesfully, judging by your comments) try to confuse people about it.

If Sun weren't trying to play legal games with the Java specs and patents, then I think they would be acceptable from an open source point of view.

Yeah, they're a publicly-traded company, just like IBM or RedHat. They do what's in the best interest of their stockholders.

Yes, and don't you forget it: that is exactly what makes their interests and the interests of open source developers and open source users different. After all, that is just what Microsoft is doing as well.

Re:Flame bait for sure

[Bi()hazard]

To sum up: YOUR FULL OF SHIT

It's 'you're.' That's 'you're.' As in 'you are.' 'You are.' That is, if I wanted to say 'You are a fucking moron,' I might shorten that to: 'You're a fucking moron.' You fucking moron.

Actually, I believe the esteemed gentleman was using the noun form of the verb "to full," meaning "To make (a garment) full, as by pleating or gathering." Therefore "a full" refers to an attempt to full a garment. Clearly, a full of shit would then be the fulling of a garment using shit; the shit would likely be sewn into the garment between multiple layers of cloth.

One may wish to consider a synthetic fabric for such work, as natural fibers tend to be too porous for containing shit in polite company. The use of a sewing machine will allow you to form a tighter seal. In addition, drying the shit thoroughly before insertion into the garment is adviseable. The generous application of antibacterial chemicals and preservatives will prevent decomposition of the shit and maintain its consistency-you don't want your dress to start sagging halfway through the party because your shit is rotten.

In conclusion, the poster who wrote "YOUR FULL OF SHIT" is guilty only of using a sentence fragment and excessive capitalization. Perhaps he is operating under the assumption that fulling a garment with shit is a disgraceful procedure. He might then attempt to insult with the mere implication that an attempt to full with shit happened, just as one might use the sentence fragment "YOUR MOM" as an insult.

If that is the case, he is clearly behind the times. Natural Organically Enhanced Fabrics are the big thing next season! All the environmentally correct fashion shows currently feature sylish designer Organic Wear such as shit-fulled ball gowns. Remember, ladies, nature knows best-you only need to know how to sew to keep nature from calling at the wrong time!

Re:Explain This

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't serve Mac faggots there?

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[hdparm]

Sun may still be alive but I'll bet on above poster's 5 years. Perhaps the best description of the Sun's current state is given by Nicholas Petreley here.

Yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

So?

I mean, it's good and all that OSS has gotten into another government, but is it really necessary to laud it as some great triumph or something? OSS happens; Microsoft happens; who cares?

Useful link:

[theTerribleRobbo]

Bob the Angry Flower

Good start

[chegosaurus]

I'm no Linux/Open Source zealot, and have little time for those who are. I don't even particularly hate Microsoft (I hate using most of their products, but that's another story), but it makes me angry to even think about the amount of the taxpayer's money that they cream off, when there are free solutions that work equally well. This is a good start at least.

What I'd *really* like to see isn't just the OS replaced on workers' desktop PCs, but a lot of those PCs replaced with VTs. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and set up to provide only the applications people need to do their job. No tossing it off on the web all day, no Internet usage policies, no clueless outsourced PC support department, just a big old Unix server (or two) conencted to dumb terminals, with users trained in the one or two pieces of software they really need. Not suitable for everyone of course, but perfect for a lot of setups. I'm going OT I know. Sorry.

Re:Good start

[Anonymous Coward]

Mad Hatter is not too far off this - the PC has whatever components you want on it (no Mozilla if you don't want people tossing it off web-browsing) and it includes centralised management

Re:Good start

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Sunrays?
http://www.sun.com/sunray

Re:Good start

[chegosaurus]

If you *need* graphics capabilites, Sunrays would do just fine. If not, stick with the VTs.

Re:Good start

[ironygranny]

You are, of course, exactly right. But, at least where I work, now that workers have gotten used to having the full power of a real pc at their disposal (by which I mean they are able to browse the web at anytime, play solitaire, or go on AIM), it's going to be like pulling teeth to get them off of them. I have nightmares about switching a few of our users, who get mad if we even try to patch "their" windows machines (though we've recently moved over to AD & SUS for that, it's only a slightly smaller pain-in-the-ass than going around to 150 desktops & patching manually).

Re:Good start

[HiThere]

Having once run a small microcomputer for an office... you don't know what you are saying. Possibly large corporations can actually benefit by this kind of system, but not small one's. The cost of the terminal is about the same as the cost of the computer..esp. if you low bid it. The cost of the contention is difficult to immagine. Even now people are upset when their e-mail & internet connection goes down, if their entire computer went down... the company might as well declare a half holiday while the systems staff tried to fix whatever broke. And while it's not common, there have been times when the LAN was down for a couple of days. (I don't know the details, because I'm no longer in that part of the computer staff..we hired specialists. They're a bit better than we were, but by no means perfect.)

OTOH, you did say VT, and I may be misinterpreting that when I read that as VT100's (or equivalent). I will admit that having terminals renders Linux (or Unix) more stable...because a process that locks the screen and keyboard on one session won't affect the others. So you can just log-on and kill the renegade process. (I used to *never* log onto the console [TTY0] unless something had gone wrong elsewheere, and I needed to kill it. That resulted in lots better up times. Well, this was on an old Altos System V machine. Things have gotten a lot more stable since then!) But everyone, computer staff, analysts, and management alike was pleased when we were able to start migrating to local computers. I may think that we made silly choices about the OS... but the basic idea was right. Unfortunately, one of the senior computer people had a daughter who worked for MS and was really convinced by her that it was the best choice. Otherwise we would have probably gone with the Macintosh, a choice that would have suited us much better than MSWindows did. And probably would have been cheaper. (Linux/Unix wasn't a viable choice for end users in 1996...the year the decision was made.)

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, an article about Sun's identity crisis!

This is so original, I love it. Oh wait. What? It's not 2002? My bad, it's an old, overused joke like most other jokes on Slashdot.

I want to buy some of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, their stock certainly will go up, not only in the coming weeks, but also in the future. I want to buy some of them, Can anybody tell me how I can buy them? About one year ago, I predicted that the Chinese stocks in NASDQ must go up in the forthcoming future, but I can not buy it from China. Today, the NTES, one of them, incredibly rise from about 1 to more than 60.

Java is open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I now modify Sun's Java code and re-release it?

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[Bull999999]

Because Sun talked shit about Linux before. Rather than admitting its mistake and calling the product "Sun Linux", they called it Java Desktop as most end users will not know any better.

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[Anonymous Coward]

what has JDS got to do with a kernel called linux? it's a desktop that will eventually run on solaris so why the fcsk would they call it Sun Linux, which by the way was the name given to the distro based on redhat that shipped with cobalts...

Re:java desktop = potential problem

[chez69]

sun should help the guy working on the java GNOME bindings. Then their gnome desktop could be a true 'java' desktop.

before you anti-java wankers reply, the java gnome bindings are the same idea as SWT, they map directly to the C API that gnome has.

Re:I've received a strange message on my machine

[Anonymous Coward]

call the phone company. they keep records of all calls, and should be able to tell you who called after verifying you are you.

Re:Explain This

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

ha that's a laugh

[10am-bedtime]

insurance companies using windows? snort. irony meter pegged.

here's a hint to those shopping for cheaper insurance (or any other service for that matter): ask the vendor if they use usloth servers. if so, that's maintenance overhead that you are paying too much for, overhead that could have been spent on you instead.

next time you get in an accident and the check doesn't come swiftly (enough) you now have a new question to ask. lucky you!

Re:Fark'n subject?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man you fark people are here too, goddammit.

(croakur)

I have been noticing some strong cross-posting between Slashdot and Fark lately ...

Since you noticed the cross-posting, doesn't that make you one of those "goddamnnit fark people"?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

So.. why not on Solaris x86 instead of Linux?

[HighOrbit]

From what I've seen, the Java Desktop System runs on top of SuSe Linux. But the major components such as Gnome, Mozilla, StarOffice, and Evolution will compile on Solaris too. So why isn't Sun using this to push x86 Solaris instead of Linux? Is it because of crappy hardware support for PCs in Solaris? Certainly, I would think that Sun knows their own OS and could get it to work. Certainly it wouldn't cost them much extra to press a few more Solaris CDs, license them at the $100 per user, keep the all the revenue in-house, and not have to split it with Suse. Also, I would think a Solaris Desktop would be a good sell to the sysadmins and IT purchasers who already run a "Sun shop" in the machine room, not the least because they already know it, trust it, and could easily integrate it with thier existing infrastructure (although Linux does play well with unix standards too). All I can think of is that Sun is afraid of Solaris as a desktop OS because it might eat into the prestige of Solaris as a premium server OS.

Free? How about just acknowledging open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could care less if Sun make it free.

What I want to know is how where they get off calling GNOME a "Java Desktop"? What they're doing is claiming the Free/Open Source community's hard work as the jewel in their own crown. Essentially, they've finally got their hands on a usable desktop -- what they claimed java would be --, and they've hijacked it as their own.

Some credit please, Sun.

Re:what does sun want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look again. Sun aren't promoting linux, they're promoting Sun.

Found some insurace company software for you...

[temojen]

I could foresee this happening sometime.

Apparently, it already has. I was searching FreshMeat for accounting software today when I stumbled upon this project. Their website says

CC-Manager is an open-source project which is released under GPL.

It's written for insurance and/or investment brokers. The program will help you to manage customers, contracts, claims, dates etc....

.

Re:Explain This

[Anonymous Coward]

Its actually from apocalypse now.

Re:Flame bait for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons can use the internet. How nice is that?

Mixing "your" and "you're" makes a person who types at 60 wpm a moron?

I think YOU'RE full of shit too! But then I'm a moron in YOUR opinion, therefore you need not worry about that statement.

As long as you get the message, that's all that counts!

Re:last gasp before Solaris dies

[g0_p]

And the same is the case in my uni. In most of the labs SPARC machines constitute about 30-50% of the machines. Most of the other machines are Dells. About 5% are Macs. And they recently brought in a fresh batch of SunBlade machines as well. Solaris seems to be the unix environment of choice. They also seem to have licenses to all required scientific applications. OpenOffice is the M$Office alternative..