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Is Sun Turning against Linux and Red Hat?
An Elephant writes "Groklaw is reporting,
based on a ZDNet UK story, that Sun's strategy for survival in the near future is based on trying to equate Linux with Red Hat, and then attack Red Hat as too small to support enterprises. This seems strange -- Sun is selling a Linux distro itself (the Java Desktop System). As I write this, there's no mention of this on Sun's website -- neither confirmation nor denial. What's going on?"
Sun has just nailed Red Hat and Linux with a steel chair! Oh no! It's SCO... and SCO is raising Sun's hand! What does this mean?! This can only be settled at Linuxmania!
I think they missed the point.
...they are the MS of the linux world.
Could you elaborate on that?
They support community standards, have a better-safe-than-sorry policy on patent-encumbered stuff, fully support a Free, rapid-release cycle distro with no GPL incompatible components at all (unlike some other large distros have done). They have not bought out or killed off other distributions or done anything else that would be unconcionable. So how, exactly, do they become "the MS of the linux world"?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I'm surprised to hear that Novell is being discounted and ignored. Sure, you might laugh, but don't forget that they now own SuSe (which is still the most popular distro in Europe), and Ximian, which owns Evolution and has a stronger influence over the direction of GNOME and Mono.
They drove me away with poor hardware support and I'm now using RedHat on x86, but they know how to get me back: quality engineering at a fair price.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge free software fan (or is that fanatic), but this FUD is the worse FUD I've seen since Darl shut up.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Companys that begin to struggle and can see their future dying are apt to do all sorts of vile things. Partnering with Microsoft is not a good sign, for we all know how Microsoft view Linux. Now we may have another sign from Sun about how they view it. Thanks to Groklaw, despite all the naysayers, I've seen Sun's schizo "we love Linux / we are going to destroy Linux" behavior for what it is: No real friend to the FOSS community.
As for Groklaw not being objective, I'm so glad. I've had enough of objective news coverage that refuses to call people on their statements. Politician X tells his lie, then Politician Y tells his opposite lie, the story ends right there, and that's considered good journalism?! No thanks. Give me the Groklaw approach every day of the week. You do wrong, you get called out. You do right, you get praised. If you don't like it, start your own advocacy site where you can call it as you see it. But don't put down Groklaw just because it's on the side of FOSS.
You guys are going nuts on trying to figure out if Sun is Pro-Linux or against it. The truth the both and neither. If sun can make money off of Linux then they will support Linux in areas. If other Linux companies are cutting into their market share then they will play the Solaris Card and down the disadvantages of Linux. Suns stance on Linux was always this. Linux is good, but Solaris is better. So if people complain that Sun hardware w. Solaris is to big then hey lets use Linux and see if you want Solaris later. But if they want Solaris then they will go lets see if we can get rid of all those nasty Linux systems. Solaris Does have advantages over Linux and some really good scailing features. But for most companies and people linux does the trick. So Sun is Linux if you want but we rather you go with Solaris.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Okay, so let's assume here, that Sun is successful in "merging" Red Hat and Linux into one. First off, Microsoft has basically already done so, as any benchmark of windows vs. "linux" is Red Hat. Keep this point in mind.
/. linux users gone down as a result?
Have any of you switched your Red Hat (read: any linux distro) systems to windows server?
So, we've had Microsoft preaching that linux IS Red Hat, for a while now.
Have the
I know I know, businesses may have. But have YOU?
Apply the same to Sun, and take note of their respective sizes. Assuming that Sun pulls the "merge" off, just what exactly will it affect, compred to microsoft? MS isn't making any big dents (yet, time will tell), so how could Sun? (In a completly closed-mind view.)
I know, I know, in two years, MS might be a thing of the past, and then in 4 years, if it's not a SCO server then it's not worth anything. I won't debate how the future works, as it really is pointless.
If I may remind you all of a quote of Linus, which goes something to the point of, "My goals were never to destroy Microsoft. That will be a completly unintentional side effect." (Yeah, that's probably a horrible 'quote', but live with it, you get the point.)
So, why should you care if Sun does this? Sun can spout all the FUD they want, as can Microsoft, as can 'Red Hat' (read: any linux distro), but that doesn't change the fact that some PR FUD changed actual benchmarks, it doesn't change the prices, and it doesn't change what really works. If Sun does the job better than linux, go for Sun I say. If linux does it better, go with linux.
Just take note: using the 'PR' view, we should ALL be using Microsoft Server, linux it's worth 2 cents, and Sun is some upstart with millions, who's preaching against a 2 cent OS.
Form your own opinions, people. Chill.
No problem. Let MS and Sun go right on believing that Linux == Red Hat. Let them even try to kill Red Hat if they can. We'll just keep doing what we've always done: building better software in and for the open source community. To use "their" terminology -- our Value Proposition continues to improve, year after year, relentlessly marching on, happily coexisting with (but not depending on) the corporations who operate within our space.
Seriously, if MS and Sun think they can beat Linux by beating Red Hat, let them believe that. It'll keep them off our backs while we build the next generation of superior software.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
And a good rebuttal from a linux kernel hacker.
My photolog
Sun?
NFS, OpenOffice, GNOME?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
how many companies ... actually contribute to it? Sun? HP? Dell? Intel? AMD?
Yes, Intel. Read the 2.6.9-2 changelog. Tony Luck contributes, as does Ken Chen. You didn't mention SGI, but I'll mention them. sgi.com email addresses submit patches. HP? Sure, Bjorn Helgaas submits patches. Dell? Oh yeah, Dell hosts the MegaRaid development mailing list, and a few people from dell.com also submit patches. AMD? Take a look at the 2.4.27 chagelog. An AMD employee submitted a patch for an AMD network driver.
IBM is not the only corporation to submit patches to the Linux kernel.
I fail to see where the problem is, or how this exactly equates to Sun being anti-Linux.
Red Hat sells Linux. Sun sells Linux in the form of JDS. Sun is coming up with a strategy to encourage potential buyers to purchase from them by claiming that Red Hat isn't up to handling large enterprise accounts.
This is what competition is all about, folks. One of the great things about Open Source is that we can have multiple competing distributions. Mandrake and SuSe aren't buddy-buddy with Red Hat -- they compete with them as well. Do you somehow think that when they're competing with Red Hat for an account that they don't go in and try to show the potential buyer how they are better that Red Hat, or where Red Hat's weaknesses (perceived or otherwise) are?
This is the nature of competition. It doesn't mean that Sun is anti-Linux (although I don't believe that Sun is a great friend to Linux either). It's simple competition. This is news to anyone? Would anyone expect anything different between two competing companies? This is a complete non-story if I ever saw one.
Yaz.
Scan through it for a while and you get a bit of an idea of the direction he thinks in, publicly at least.
For example:
Or:
Sun definitely seems to think they have a strong competitor to Linux with Solaris 10, especially with adding support for running Linux applications. Their pricing for Solaris x86 is ballpark with suse or red hat enterprise.
Sun realizes that Linux is making certain layers of the stack a commodity, and is fighting strongly both on the front of bringing Solaris into the market while providing some added value (what a change from when they were killing Solaris x86 just a short while ago...) and moving up the stack (java desktop, application servers, etc.) while at the same time trying to expand their offerings of commodity servers that can run any platform... and using that as an entry point to get Solaris in the door.
I mean, "duh" Sun competes with Red Hat, and makes a big deal about being able to be a vendor that has a full hardware and software stack of their own. I don't, however, see any signs that Sun is betting the farm on Solaris.
Y'know, sometimes I think that all the /. crowd wants to see is All Linux, All The Time. God, how boring. Despite what most of you have experienced, there are actual other OS's that are very good. Some *gasp* might even be better than Linux. And I think the day when Linux is the only OS in the datacenter would be a terrible day. Variety is what made Linux so powerful. It was a good/cheap alternative to Solaris/Windows/AIX/HP-UX.
Sun is trying to be competitive. They can't say "Linux sucks, go with Solaris" because it impossible to compete with an ideology. And besides, they sell Linux for the desktop. BUT they CAN say "Redhat sucks, go with Sun" which is what they ARE doing. Seems fair, right? I mean, for years, Linux advocates have been saying "Windows/Solaris/'All other OS's' suck, go with Linux"
Bah, who cares. Ill still recommend Linux for 1-4 way, and Solaris for anything heavier.
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
Tried it out 9/21 on a Dell 2xP3500 512M, and an AMD xp2400 512M, after listening to their web event on friday. Next I want to install it on a 2x2.8 Xeon, 2G.
s 10x86.html solaris looks great, if it was 1990s, but I don't think Sun realizes how advanced (at least in terms of eye candy, user-friendliness, and gui tools, but not necessarily system stability) some of the linux distros are.
-Installation time: 1hr-2hr
-Drivers: what drivers!
-Gnome 2: Crashed first time on, but stable after.
-Couldn't mount floppy to install 3rd party net driver - need to read docs.
-Docs... what docs... Docs iso does not exist, docs available on line.
-couldn't start scm? (manager tool) because it couldn't find the server - net problem I believe - see above.
I'm not saying most of the problems are Sun's fault, and with Gnome's crash exception, I should be able to fix most problems after browsing the docs, but not having a manageable system (for whatever reason) after a clean install is not good for business.
I really want to give Sun a chance on x86, but history is not in their favor, especially after they almost pulled the rug from under x86 users.
On paper http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/10/ds/solari
No matter whatever you say they are going down. If they don't go I will put my effort to see that Sun is out of business.
That being said--why I am so pissed ?
There is one thing you can never do and get away in Enterprise computing--lie to your customer.
This is back in 1997/1998 when MSFT was not considered a enterprise level system. So we were happy running the latest E3500 and 4500 systems. Then one day the Memory problem started taking place. If there is any Sun hardware admins there they will probly remember the "J3200" error in the syslog just before the system crash.
Sun did not tell us that was a memory problem and took us through painful route of upgrading/patching/replacing components etc. . We trusted Sun and went with that.
Then I have found out they were going to major customers and signing out some kind of NDA where they will fix their server only at a condition the customer can not tell that to anyone.
So, I guess the 1.5M budget we had for Sun gear was not enough for Sun. After we found out ( BTW the sales guy's name was "Steve Introcaso" -- normally works in North East Division--one smooth talker, just hope that he is not in your account ) what was going on we called Sun and they again denied about it.
My job was on the line since I was the architect of the Stock Market Data Processing System. I have finally convinced our management with proper value proposition to start the migration from Sun to Linux since it was not possible for me to "trust" Sun anymore and IBM/HP was too much effor to port the systems.
It took over 5 years to get rid of Sun--but I am glad I did it.
Whatever you do--don't lie when you are dealing with a company's lifeline systems and who buys >1M worth of gears from you every year.
And not to mention about the Java BS they did ... but that's for another day.
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
Contrary to popular belief, Sun has done more for FOSS than any other company out there. Integrated over time, Sun's overall contribution has been unmatched. Let's look at a few key points:
1) Sun workstations were the primary development environment for FOSS from about 1987 till the early 1990's.
2) How many copies of Linux and related software were dowdloaded from a "sunsite"?
3) TCL came from where?
4) Java came from where?
5) NFS, as we know it, came from where?
6) RPC's, as we know them, came from where?
I'm sure I could find many more, if I went digging.
Sun has been a less then perfect partner in FOSS, but they have been there longer than anyone else, and have made many significant contributions.
I truly hope, and expect, this trend to continue. No commercial partner of FOSS will be perfect, but Sun's record, to date, is really quite good.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
The truth of the matter is, Enterprise installations of Linux are no more free then any other Intel OS competitor, and I think there is a little fear and FUD because Sun is eyeing that market -- albeit later then what some wanted, and there are people with sufficient monatary interests in Linux who like to spread that FUD about Sun.
I read Groklaw for legal machinations between high tech companies -- not for PJ's opinion on he state of the industry. I've written off PJ's opinion as just somebody who has some sort of financial interest in Linux. PJ has shown nothing but hostility towards Sun. Even in PJ's area of expertise (legal) PJ doesn't report objectively on Sun ... I.E Sun's 2 billion dollar settlement with Microsoft. It's contantly portrayed as something evil, rather then what it was. Expedient, neccessary and a win for Sun.
Sun is driving towards Open source code Solaris, but they still want to (and deserve to be) the gatekeeper and ultimate authority on Solaris.
I repeat again, PJ's and Groklaws opinions on the state of the industry regarding *any* company are just that ... opinions, and not even expert ones at that. They are however the premier source of the legal wranglings that are going on in the industry.
The real enemy is/are software patents and software IP. Fight that, not a company like Sun that helped nourish the industry, and even blazed the trail and created the market (need) for Linux.
I survived 4 layoffs at Sun, I've seen many fine Engineers and innovators leave. Management has never been more open to us and forthright with us on what we have to do to survive and none of it involves cheating or fuddling the Industry. It's all quality, innovation and execution.
I have written before that most of IBM's actions over many years seem to attacks against Sun. IBM is killing its own software offerings to try to control Java. IBM even partnered with MS to take standards away from Sun.
Now Sun is partnered with MS. That alone could kill Sun if it is not very careful. But MS is running scared, and could die before leveraging their partnership to destroy Sun.
Sun wants to equate Linux with Redhat. That might have worked a few years ago. Redhat is American; SuSE was German; Mandrake is French; TurboLinux is Asian; Lindows is playing a different game. Now SuSE is American, owned by Novell, and IBM is investing in it. Does Sun not realize that SuSE moved into the neighborhood? Redhat is attempting to emulate MS, and earning MS-like badwill, but there is an American alternative. Of course, SuSE has the similar problems in putting proprietary programs into its distribution. It is difficult to find a totally-free but commercially-viable American distribution, but that does not affect Sun's market.
IBM and Sun are still focused on powerful hardware. Google has demonstrated that many applications work well with a large server farm of low-power computers. IBM realizes that the only way to keep the hardware prices high is to commoditize software. Sun has great engineers, but their business strategies do not reflect today's market.
I like Sun, and wish them well. Dell is winning on hardware, MS is struggling to stay viable in software, and everybody else is wondering how to stay competitive. Sun does not have a good answer yet.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.