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Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?
Scott_Blayney writes "This guy contends that now that Sun is releasing Solaris 10 under an open source license, Linux will begin to wane in popularity. To quote, "Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem."
"
"Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?"
No.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. What Google's AdSense for ads is, is Slashcode for FUD.
Frankly, an Open Source Solaris stands a better chance at killing Solaris than it does Linux.
The author starts the article by declaring "Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view." He's basically lost most of his credibility there, because a good decision maker needs to bring in technical people to explain this.
Though I understand the PHB philosophy of needing a brand name on their *nix product, I don't understand what's wrong with Red Hat or Novell now?
Moreover, it's setting itself up for patent lawsuits once the usual suspects start going through the newly open sourced code. Not that it's an agreeable method, but it's a fact of life.
The points the author makes are weak:
o The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.
An open source model assures it of nothing, unless they get good contributors....but:
o Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.
No risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions? Does this individual not recall that this is the company who had put out Java 2 (1.2) and Java 5 (1.5) before a real version 2?
o Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.
Sun's support isn't bad no, but IBM's been an awesome proponent of Linux - including Red Hat's 3.0 offering. Big names do know Linux, and work with you on it. Not to mention that Google is an awesome knowledge base for Linux users. And how much does it cost to search google vs. a support incident with Sun?
I don't buy that this will affect Linux's growth in the server market any more than the stray bullet SCO lawsuits. Open Source Solaris will definitely invite more hobbyist interest, but I don't understand why any of this makes it a more viable server product.
If Sun makes inroads to the desktop, then I would agree. But if Linus finally picks a GUI and starts up a desktop linux fork, I will disagree. But neither are going anywhere until they innovate, simplify and give desktop users a reason to use it.
/.
When I say "desktop users", I'm not talking about anyone here on
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
If Sun continues to support it with their engineers, and IBM continues to support Linux with Their engineers, it will still be a battle. I do not look for either side to gain much ground, (netcraft aside.)
Have you Meta Moderated t
Doesn't Linux support a vastly large collection of hardware than Solaris? Also, Linux isn't just popular because of its open-source nature, but also the philosophy behind its design and development, as well as the number of professionals behind it. I don't see the NSA donating to Solaris, now do I see most of europe backing Linux.
I haven't RTFA yet so please correct me if I'm wrong.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
...In a magical fairyland where people co-exist with dinosaurs and we live in gingerbread houses on lollipop lane!
;-)
Seriously though... this is a good question -- can the tortoise beat the hare? The answer is no. And I think we all know who the tortoise (read: slow) one is
I think this will only be true for shops that would have choosen Solaris anyway. The draw of open source is more than just cheap software. It has to do with familiarity and the availability of expert administratiors, developers, etc. Solaris will still have the same number of developers and, especially, administrators for awhile.
Nobody cares about kernels anymore. The userspace is all that matters.
Just making the Solaris OS opensource doesn't mean you will get all linux developers force on your side too. True there will be some initial momentum of people trying to port application for Solaris, then it will be more determined by the market share. People will always prefer to have more choices.
-a
This article is a pointless exercise, but since my alternative to commenting on it is to go do actual work, let's consider:
In terms of Sun's conversion to open source: Too little, way too late. If Sun had pulled this seven or eight years ago they might have had a chance at stopping Linux before it got rolling, but frankly I don't see any way a system developed as proprietary in-house software is going to be able to come out and defeat the reigning champion of the OSS movement. Everything else aside, consider the simple fact that you can't go open source overnight. Look at how long it took to turn Mozilla into something useful -- by the time the open source version finally hit the mainstream it was hugely reorganized and largely rewritten. This process took years to complete, and that was just for a web browser. So unless Sun's programmers had a *lot* more discipline than Netscape's (doubtful) and a lot fewer tangled licenses (impossible), forget about it right there.
Aside from the huge initial development issue, consider the business side: What possible reason is there to think that Solaris is going to be able to come out and impact Linux's market share? The author himself uses language that doesn't support the idea that more people are going to switch to Solaris as a result of this. In fact, the most logical outcome of the points made in the article is that Sun *may* slow the erosion of their install base over to Linux. Not exactly killing Linux there.
Then we get some more of the same 'ol. The reasons he states in the article for the impending demise of Linux could have been (and were repeatedly) written ten years a go and are just as wrong now as they were then -- sure, any of the fears he listed *could* happen, but they haven't.
To sum up, this article makes incorrect assumptions, starts from a place of poor understanding and leaps to unsupported conclusions. The greatest revelation is creates is probably that YEALD needs to find themselves a new COO.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Linux current global market share of both desktop and servers, according to most pro surveyers, is at around 3%. I don't know how you found that 10% number.
Yes, Linux has about 25% of the market share *on servers*, but overall counting all kinds of machines, it's about 3%.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No.
If you're Sun: Yes.
Finially, a Linux is going to die story... in a couple years it'll be a linux is dead story... and it will be just like BSD.
Evolution or ID?
Yeah, dead like FreeBSD !
Couple of false assumptions in the guys story. Typical when suits try to make tech decisions, especially when they are fool enough to believe their LACK of knowledge makes them more qualified, as this guy does.
A few of the obvious clues missed are:
1) Linux is already ahead of Solaris on Intel hardware, not behind as this guy believes from reading Sun press releases.
2) Solaris is not known to be portable beyond Sparc, Sparc64 and ia32. ia64 and AMD64/x86-64 might happen but as far as I know don't yet exist.
3) Sun has yet to announce a license for Solaris, it is very doubtful it will be actual Open Source and almost certainly not Free Software in the FSF sense of the term.
4) Sun is almost certain to keep parts totally closed due to licensing terms with third party suppliers.
5) Sun will rig things to retain ALL creative control from the Java experience. This will preclude any sort of community involvement on the scale needed to compete with Linux.
Democrat delenda est
As a Linux user, I would also like to see Linux continue to do well. I think there's enough room enough out there for all of us.
"Can't we all just get along?!?"
The game is over. Linux will probably be bankrupt by the end of this fiscal quarter. I understand the Linux stock has already been delisted from the Nasdaq. The shares of Linux have been tumbling ever since Sun first dropped the bomb. I understand Linux has laid off all but the core legal staff and some of the top marketing and HR people and the eighty-five story Linux building in Manhattan is already in recievership. Clearly Linux was no Match for Sun.
next question
I think we all know what OS _that_ server runs!
And, you know Sun still hasn't open-sourced the thing. And, Sun still don't have said what license they'll use or explained how they'll get around SCO /Novell's IP claims on the Unix core of Solaris.
. as p
I, for one, have gotten as tired of hearing about wonderful open source Solaris will be as I have about how wonderful Longhorn will be.
Until, I've got the open-source code in my hands, I really don't want to hear more about open source Solaris.
For more of my ranting on the subject, see:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1645508,00
Steven
If Sun opens Solaris, and if my mind serves me correctly they are switching to using AMD CPUs instead of their SPARCs, what exactly will Sun be producing?
After initial testing of slowaris 10 on x86, the answer is an easy NO... 10 is nothing special.
:P
if you're going to bother with the headache that is SUN, you might as well use their hardware...
linux owns x86 solaris 10 in just about any category I can think of... except of course java?
Linux's long-term future has always been a bit of a question mark. Who's to say that 10 years from now something new in the open-source world might not emerge and overtake it, taking many things from it? It's always possible, and it seems that _eventually_ it would inevitably happen as the mood of the open-source community will eventually shift to feeling that linux is crufty and a fresh start is needed.
But all of that being said, I think I can say two things with a fair amount of certainty:
1) That time is not now. Linux is really just getting into it's game. It has lots of growth and evolution left in the commercial world. The time may come, but not in the next 4-5 years for damn sure. Even then, while the industry may begin to swing away from Linux to something new, Linux will remain a strong force for many many years to come during the transition.
2) Whatever that New Thing is that comes along to supplant Linux as the new Open Source Darling Operating System, it damn sure won't be Solaris.
11*43+456^2
Until Solaris becomes a user-friendly and error free (and non-resource hogging) as Linux, then I would say no. But I would definately give it a run for the money, on the other hand.. Didn't MS and Sun just do a deal? Doesn't MS have a big beef with Linux? Is this MS's way of getting rid of Linux? CONPIRACY THEORISTS UNITE!!!
Slashdotted already.
Hopefully he wasn't running Solaris 10...
Its as if a million gnu/linux geeks suddenly cried out at once.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
respond to this. Then I found out it was this guy who was making these statements. Once I realized that, I sold all my Linux stock, wiped off all my installs, sold the house and have moved my family to the secret shack in the hills. After all, this guy has never steered me wrong before.
it's all about choice.
I'd expect that an Open Source Solaris would be used in conjunction with Linux, and many people would use and openly support both. I'd suspect that given the choice, we would not give up our growing selection of free operating systems, but rather add to it.
The result is that Linux will kill Solaris, deader than a doorknob.
The one country where Linux cannot defeat a proprietary operating system (OS) is China. In China, the Chinese simply steal what they do not want to buy. Windows XP is essentialy "free" just like Linux. Solaris is also "free".
i'll go install it on my sharp zaurus. what's the url for the arm solaris distro?
right.
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Solaris can't be "open-sourced" because of the confidentiality parts of the Unix license agreements. They'd be in trouble for the same things that got IBM a lawsuit and started Groklaw, leaking trade secrets.
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
For one thing, Linux is now as much a "brand" as Solaris. And there are too many people making difefrent distros for Linux to really wane for some time.
But also, consider what "Open Source" really means. I'm not familiar with what OS licence Sun is using, but if it's really "Open" then Linux can make use of the best bits to keep going. If it's not really that "Open" then the current forces that move Linux will continue the course unchanged.
In a world that already has BSD and Linux living together in harmony (well, as much harmony as a VI and Emacs user sharing the same house) there is also room, and a place, for Solaris.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Its a pretty flawed case he makes.....part of which is prefaced on Solaris being "Free" now. Solaris, for all intents and purposes has been free. Sure, not the source code.....but the OS has effectively been free....and while I am sure there will be plenty of people who will actually take advantage of its source being available....I dont suspect it will cause some huge shift to Solaris from Linux. He also seems to equate Solaris being open source with people porting it to lots of different hardware....sorry, it would never occur to me to run Solaris on anything but sun hardware(and clones)....I mean its marginal on x86 hardware as it is....who the heck would port it to arm or ppc??
Just bad reasoning by ludite pundit. Though I am sure he managed to drive a lot of traffic to his site.
dimes
The tortouise wins.
Why does one have to 'kill' the other? Why can't they stay in a state of equilibrium goading each other to improve?
Why do people always assume one product has to erradicate all the competition and become the only product of it's type.
----
That having been said, Sun has some relly nice hardware at the high end of the scale. I don't expect that to change in the near future.
Sun is just roadkill on Linux's crusade to take out Microsoft.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Solaris couldn't kick linux out of every possible niche (embedded wagoo 3sx-12 cpus or whatnot), it could cream it on the desktop.
Sun will throw all its muscle behind it's Java Desktop to deliver a polished, cohisive system. Linux will continue to be pulled in 100 directions at once.
Distros need to stop offering Gnome, KDE, fluxbox, and 9000 other window managers, and pick a path and stick to it.
There really isn't that much of a market for people who like to dick around with 10000 different ways to close a window, each with it's own myriad of quirks and bugs. They like to plug it in, turn it on, and have it work pretty much the same way as the one in the next cubicle, or the next building.
Linux' strength (versatility) is it's achilles heel when it comes to the desktop market.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.
Even giving him the first half of his argument (which is debatable), just becasue an OS is open source doesn't mean it's going to grow as fast as Linux. Leadership and general community interest is a HUGE part of the picture. Hurd anyone?
Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux.
Ah I see, so being open source is the only edge that Linux has over the competition. Hmmmm.
Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.
I can't really speak to this, never worked with Sun's support.
Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.
I think this is much a negative as a positive. "Becasue Sun is by default the only designated party managing the open source software, you might be stuck with what they think is best." After all we know Sun has a great track record with managing semi-open projects in the past, right? (Java...)
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
They are only makeing the core Open source, like Darwin, Linux still has a much greater Application base to draw from and keep it going. When Doom3 does Solaris, then panic.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
If Solaris succeeds, MS will rant about the death of Linux & the undependable and unpredictable upgrade paths required for open source solutions.
If Solaris doesn't succeed, MS will rant about how open sourcing it killed it and how you can't depend on open source software.
If Solaris had done this TEN YEARS AGO, then maybe. As things stand today, no. It comes down to a matter of trust. Do most Linux users trust Solaris enough to let go of Linux? No.
Take a choice between A and B. A is commonly considered a better product than B. Most will choose A. But B offers something that A has never dreamed of. In fact, A hates the idea of offering what B offers. B gains a lot of support. Time ticks by, and after seeing how much B has benefitted A changes it's mind and offers something similar to what B offers - but only because it has to.
Do all those people who would have originally chosen A, but chose B go back to A? NO. Because B is of a similar mindset to the choosers. B WANTS to offer things to the chooser. A offers because it has to remain competitive. That is HUGE. And that is why Solaris will not kill Linux.
P.S. A is not necessarily better than B.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Sun produces wonderful stuff but it faces the same challenges in SME's as Linux does in telecommunications and large installations (lack of qualified staff & unfamiliarity).
What this does do is pave the way for Sun to leverage the advantages of an OSS model while retaining control of the code base. I don't think this leads to the highest possible margins but it may be one of the only viable business models in the near future.
Linux will benifit from openSun more than hurt. Sun does not have anywhere the amount of peripherals that linux has now. But linux (if the license permits) can gain a lot about security features, this new 'self-healing' problem solving and such.
Once again I think this will be something that takes away from *NIX hold on servers not the market share that linux already has.
hopefully the BSD's will gain a lot of useful knowledge on the SPARC systems from Solaris Kernel.
Since when has a programmer enthusiastically dropped their own code to pick up someone elses? Not a technical person, yeah, obviously. =)
We have yet to see what the open source license for Solaris will be like. If Sun licences Solaris much in the same way they treat Java, there will not be other "Solaris-like" distributions, unlike there is in the Linux world. Linux has, and will likely always be, the people's OS. Written by the people, for the people, and distributed with or without cheese, lettuce, tomatos, and onions. It's doubtful there will be a mass migration to Solaris, just because they are touting it as being open. I do, however, see the ability for a better interoperability between Solaris and Linux due to openness. I think linux will continue to expand in the lower end server market, and pick up more of the desktop eventually, and Solaris will continue to make an excellent high end platform.
FreeBSD is dying
Apple is going out of business
Profit! (oh wait, that's another list)
Feel free to add the others I forgot right now.
So much to do, so little bandwidth.
--
Try Mozilla
The Solaris Kernel has some advantages, and it has some nice high-end server tools. People will still prefer to use GNU packages for most things, though. This would put Debian's plans to create a "Universal Operating System" with interchangeable kernels at an advantage over other distributions. There will probably be many efforts to recreate some of Solaris advantages as part of Linux/BSD. Maybe, as the result of all this, the Linux JVM will no longer suck.
How many architechures does Solaris support? Sparc and x86? Is that all?
How many does Linux support?
Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!
Balls.
Until today, the discussion around Linux pushed by Red Hat and recently by Novell after it took over Suse has been around the risks and opportunitites of the open source model versus the costs and slow adaptation of the proprietary model.
Opponents of open source software always argued that due to its nature there is a risk that version control, compatibility, future development and support is not guaranteed and could leave companies who use it at some point with a free but outdated system that is difficult to maintain.
Companies like Red Hat and Novell and on occasion other big players have tried to take away these arguments by committing to the open source model and vowed to make it work. Despite their efforts and some success, there still is a lot of skepticism within corporate IT departments and as a result Linux is not taking the market by storm.
With the decision by Sun to give away their latest version of their software, Solaris 10 for free all of these concerns have evaporated in one blow in favor of the now open source and compatible Solaris 10 supported by Sun.
Looking at the advantage of going the Sun route versus the Linux route it is hard to see why any IT executive would chose to switch to Linux.
- The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.
- By making it work with competing hardware platforms, there is no reason anymore to switch software to facilitate lower hardware costs.
- Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux.
- Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.
- Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.
Again as a non technical person, the decision for me would be simple, I would go with Solaris unless I was already using Linux; Why take risks when I can choose a proven, high quality solution at comparable costs?
As a result Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem
Of course I might very well be overlooking something here, if so, please let me and other readers know by posting your opinion in a reaction (see below).
Short answer: Yes, with an if; Long answer: No, with a but.
As long as they don't adopt enlightenment and blow it they *are* kidding.
That is why if a company sees their product loosing to something open sourse they may as well open source right away in order to keep their mindshare, if it has any value to them.
My speculation is that OSS will be majority in 100 years.
The fact of the matter is that Linux gained grass roots popularity because it is open source and in many cases free as in beer, which gave it a great amount of flexibility. Now that it has corporate momentum the fact that it is open source is not it's strongest selling point with the majority of big business customers. Stronger selling points are it's low cost, flexibility, user friendliness (compared to traditional unix), amount of applications available, and it's an alternative to Microsoft.
If being open source was the big hot button of large businesses then why are the BSD's not more popular than Linux in terms of mindshare and visibility if not installed base?
Linux has mindshare with both developers and businesses. That is something that "Open Source" Solaris cannot easily attain. There's also the fact that while Solaris is "Open Source" it's license is still more restrictive than the GPL, and it's controlled by one company, so there is almost no chance that developers from the Linux community will make the jump to Solaris.
That's a really stupid question. It's like asking if proprietary software will kill Microsoft. Of course open source won't kill Linux. Linux is part of the open source movement. Plus Solaris is still controlled by Sun Microsystems, so it really won't be open in the sense that Linux is. Until there is a distrobution of Solaris that isn't from Sun, there's very little reason to make silly statements like "will Solaris kill Linux", or "will open source kill Linux".
Could you please pass me some of whatever those guys are smoking ?
Later on he goes further and says he is "not a technical person". WTF. Why would anyone choose an operating system based on the advice of a non-technical person? He even seems to think that being non-technical makes him more qualified for giving advice on choosing an operating system.
Should I let a vegetarian tell me how to cook a steak? Should a let a blind person choose what color to paint my house?
His logic seems to say that the only people who are well qualifed to give advice in a field are the ones that aren't experts in that field. Maybe he is looking to get a job with SCO.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I for one welcome our Solaris Wielding Overlords.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The small market share of enterprise *nix that linux fills is the "we're too small and/or too cheap to get something else" niche.
The niche for solaris, right now, is very high-end, very specialized solutions.
These two markets do not compete with one another. And never will
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
We've been using the beta of 10 for about 3 months now in testing with Oracle at our site. It's pretty, that's for sure, with it's nice Gnome facelift and all, but I think essentially that Linux and Solaris fill different roles, at least for us.
.... once .... in a lab... and it isn't reproducable to the average joe...
Linux feels a lot more like a general purpose OS than Solaris, and 10 while friendlier is still very much rooted in the proprietary Solaris tradition.
To sum it up, this is good for Solaris users who can throw away the whole CDE/Openwin experience and replace it with something refreshingly cleaner, however we were going to adopt 10 anyway. It seems to me that Sun is going to have to really dig and build new things rather than merely say 'hey we're OSS now too!' and expect Linux users to suddenly flock their way.
Looking Glass is an excellent example of software people could see as a reason to change platforms, and IMHO Sun should focus on this type of admittedly risky innovation instead of attempting to lure existing Linux users into a Solaris world. Someday, all these marketing guys are going to realize that there's more to an OS than just a name, and that actually creating something new is the best approach to picking up market share (OSX == good example).
All that said, ZFS is a really cool thing if it works as spec'd, however ZFS is NOT in open beta AFAIK, and it has not been released to us little guy partners as of yet (though I'm betting they've started testing at the larger shops), so all we have here to go on so far is a marketing claim of improved i/o that could be true, false, or in that grey area salespeople like to use where the whole thing ran great!
I'm guessing we'll all know in about 2 months.
-chitlenz
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
I've looked around and can't find what kind of license Solaris 10 is under. The only way I figured I can is to register with Sun, download it, and view the license, but I don't want to do that as I don't intend on using it. Perhaps this speaks something on its own. I can download the linux kernel all over the net and I don't have to register for it to boot.
I guess I don't see this as cut-and-dry as Mr. Ottnik is making it out to be.
Also, can I hack Solaris, write drivers, or port Solaris 10 to whatever platform I want? Can I even get the source? (Again, I don't have the license and I'm generally clueless about Solaris.)
:wq
maybe the Sun will be so hot that Tux will die because of the global warming...
As anyone who's tried out x86 Solaris is aware; it's no match for Linux on the platform - or any other platform other than Sun's own hardware for that matter. The hardware support is pretty dire. Sure, it's supposedly a superior kernel, but if it's unable to take advantage of the metal underneath it, then it's not going to win market share.
;-)
(yes I have tried it out, and it lasted a full week before I threw up my hands in disappointment and went back to the penguin
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Seriously... although it may well be plausable that a good number of places which once would have installed a free Linux will now instead install a free Solaris x86, everyone knows good and well that even that scenario wouldn't "kill" Linux.
Depending on how "open" Solaris code turns out to be, it's success may indeed make all of Open Source stronger, prompting more companies to follow suit, releasing their core products under some sort of Open Source license and placing more engineers on open-source-based projects.
In any event, it's going to take a lot more than a free and open Solaris to "kill" Linux. Seriously, show me the Solaris fanatics... I haven't seen them. The Linux fanatics, on the other hand, are everywhere... and as long as they are alive, Linux will be alive as well. Which is a good thing.
Open source is like living in a transparent house. Your guests like it because they feel safer, but it's not so great when someone needs to take a crap.
not until its intel edition is stable on home-made pcs.
Redhat/SuSE may feel the threat now that Sun has made Solaris free of charge, but I doubt it can cause real harm to these two commercial distros. Solaris works best on Sun's hardware, while Redhat/SuSE's support to a varity of PC hardware is tested over time. Linux also has a solid supporting community. Even with a true free license, it's still hard for Sun to play catch up.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
Regardless that Solaris may me Open Source, it takes commitment, trust**, and a community to become a success in Open Source. Linux would not have succeeded without that.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
It will not run though!
You can always find an idiot willing to say any old thing... It's better than statistics for "proving" random conclusions you want proven.
Just wait and see.
Now, excuse me, i have to go. That flying pig told me we'll be having a cold day here in Hell.
if people preferentially opt for bloat-ware.
Is there no end to the cluelessness out there!?!
In the ever flowing stream of nonesense - first we get the foghorn, Balmer, saying Linux infringes on eleventy-11 zillion patents and you will lose your left nut for using it, then we get that shot down now we hear that the universe belongs to Sun.
Please, please get real! Solaris dies - Linux lives and that's the end of that!
That's just dumb. Open sourcing Solaris won't automagically make it more popular than Linux.
Besides, this is Sun we're talking about. I bet it won't be an OSI-approved license and therefore will only be considered open source "because Sun tells you it is" (familiar?).
Linux is strong because it's a worldwide community effort where both individuals and companies are welcome to participate.
Meanwhile, the open source Solaris will remain tightly controlled by Sun, and therefore will only go in the direction Sun wants it to (forks may happen, but their chances of survival are very low). Sun never really cared about the "community" and you can bet open sourcing Solaris won't change that.
That being said, BSD (and probably OS X as well) stands to gain a lot more from Solaris than Linux does if its license is more compatible.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
One thing they cannot get in _their_ thick stupid heads is Open Source is open source to the point that 10 year old Joe Bloggs can send a patch in to fix.
Controlled 'open source' whereby the code is given away, but people cannot argue about what is good/bad/ugly and patch it, is not open as Linux is.
GNU/Linux moves in funny ways, and it has nothing to do with Companies releasing source to there products (and IP I presume) or whatever.
The moment Sun-OS becomes open source it will start integrating code from Linux and losing it's own code and in fact become just another Linux distribution.
The department says it all.
I really doubt Solaris represents much of a threat to Linux. Linux has been going for over ten years, and has built up a great amount of momentum; developers aren't just going to switch from coding for their operating system of choice to work on an unfamiliar Solaris. There isn't enough incentive.
Whilst I'm sure Solaris will attract some attention, I'd guess that the majority of developers will stick with the operating system they know. Whilst Sun can throw a lot of weight behind this project, it's easier to keep an open source project moving along at speed, than it is to start a new one. I'm skeptical as to whether open-source Solaris can attract the developer attention that Linux has.
Whilst businesses are pretty much free to choose what they want, the writer seems to be suggesting that because Solaris is open source, that will somehow make it magically better. Businesses are not usually known for choosing software simply because it is open source. Unfortunately, just making a product open source is not an automatic recipe for success, otherwise Hurd would garner just as much attention as Linux.
Any and all Linux distros geared for the desktop (and I don't mean Red Hat or SUSE rebranded with "desktop" in the name) do exactly what you say.
Ubuntu, Xandros, Linspire, etc. - they all pick a technology and stick to it.
Anyone who's admined linux and solaris can tell you the one MAJOR problem with solaris, it's a royal pain in the tush to admin. Linux is easier.... if you want linux useability and security use openbsd ;-)
Solaris as open source would have a better probability of killing off weaker nix's like HP-UX (memory issues) or AIX than Linux. Linux has taken incredible strides but Solaris is a good OS that is very mature. With the x86 version working properly, and the JES stack added on, its a compelling solution set for smaller cost
# nohup
Keep in mind, when we are comparing Linux and Solaris, we are just comparing the Kernel. For a end user, he can still have a Solaris kernel and have all the standard destop/applications that comes with Fedora and won't feel any difference. All sun has to do is make sure it ports all the drivers and applications that are available on linux to Solaris and they might have a better system than Fedora.
From a former sun support. I have been hacking on Sun/Sparc since 94. I got more than a half zone sparc hardware in my basement at home. But F Solaris and Sun.
Sparc machine sucks in terms of price. As a small time engineer/entrepreneur, I embrace the x86 for the price. Heavy end sparc rocks in hardware and all, but with the economy and all, I will rather use x86.
With the recent Linux bashing from Sun and screwups as a company, I no longer trust Sun either. I am not a Linux fan either, I am a BSD oriented guy. But Solaris is never going to kill Linux! NEVER!
segmond
Sun will throw all its muscle behind it's Java Desktop to deliver a polished, cohisive system. Linux will continue to be pulled in 100 directions at once.
Sun's been throwing "muscle" behind its desktops for years and years. And I haven't seen Solaris 10 yet, but the most recent Solaris 9s I have seen, and you know what it is? A choice between a twm interface that feels 15 years out of date and a mostly-working GNOME interface with some recent functionality missing that feels four years out of date.
The "Java Desktop" is literally SUSE linux rebranded and with a skin. I find it unlikely to the point of being silly that the company who's been unable to create an up-to-date desktop for the last 10 years will for Solaris 10 be mysteriously able to create a "polished, cohesive system" all of a sudden out of nowhere. More likely Sun will locate some relatively polished, relatively cohesive linux distribution, repackage their interface, and ruin the cohesion by retrofitting all of the circa-1990 Athena apps that the Solaris team can't let go of underneath the verneer of usability.
Versatility may be an "archilles heel" for Linux, but Linux isn't a product, it's a kernel. Versatility is no problem for, say, Ubuntu Linux, which is free to be as cohesive as its customers want.
Mr. Blayney: I've got $10,000 which says you're wrong. Care to bet an equivalent amount?
To everyone: Now what would really be cool is a betting pool on this one. Of course the terms have to be properly done, and the bet has to be made legally. But I'm sure one of those bookies in the U.K. could be found to handle these arrangements.
Personally, this is an easy bet for me. I'm putting my resources in doing Linux professionally. I've done Solaris professionally in the past as well (buildings 5 and 17 for those in the know). And I'll continue putting my money and time on Linux over Solaris any day.
So c'mon Blayney, and anyone else. Let us put up or shut up.
...do not feed the trolls.
linux is free as in lunch. It's not just that it's open sourced it is open source with a license that encourages free thought. Sun will never open source solaris under a license that will give that much freedom to the end user. I don't think they would tolerate a fork of solaris that could potentially be more popular than the original.
Whoever wrote that article evidently didn't read the Solaris license. I suppose they havn't tried installing it on a hand-built machine of off-the-shelf parts. Solaris is cool, but it isn't going to kill Linux by being released under a sortof open source license...
Posted from the wireless couch.
Before we jump the gun. Could someone point me to the License this has been released under and to the source code?
Or is this just all FUD from Sun Microsystems which recently partnered with Microsoft?
It will make it easier to get management to switch from Windows to Solaris than Linux. You bring up Linux to managers in an enterprise and they instantly start pointing out lack support contracts. Management wants someone whose feet they can hold to the fire when something goes wrong. Sun is a well known name so it will be an easy sell.
Also Solaris is more of a real enterprise class operating system. Linux is working on it, but not there yet. Solaris has decades of use and refinement, it is a solid OS that scales great as the load increases.
I mean, if you're one of those paranoid types that thinks Sun will pwn the Linux community, go do something about it. Give your local Sun rep a wedgie. Teach children how to navigate 'make menuconfig' in the maternity ward. Stand on streetcorners asking passersby if they've let Tux into their hearts and passing out copies of "Running Linux". Or just chill the heck out.
Solaris will augment Linux and Linux will augment Solaris.
There are some things that Linux will just do better then Solaris.
For the Desktop. Solaris would suck for desktop and most workstations when compared to Linux.
Also Solaris is a big operating system. Nobody outside Solaris and some Solaris associates have ever looked at the source code of Solaris.
How does that compare to Linux? Lots of people are familar with Linux and even for a couple years after openning solaris up the only people that can realy explain what is going on would be Solaris.
It's like Linux vs BSD. There are just somethings that are more suitable for BSD then Linux, and visa versa. Linux isn't going to kill BSD anymore then Solaris is going to kill Linux.
More examples:
Linux is very suitable for Clustering. Look at the OpenSSI for instance. Look ate OpenMosix, look at Beowolf-related projects.
Solaris would be more suitable for big iron datacenters.
And don't forget that Linux is just a kernel. 90% of what runs on Linux will easily run on BSD or Solaris.
Don't think about it like Linux vs Solaris. Think about it like Linux + Solaris. What matters is Free and Open Source Software. The more the better, the more choice the more the benifits, the more the progress, the less impact that closed source software like Microsoft has on the market.
It's all good as long as Solaris is under a acceptable license. If they screw up the licensing then it's not going to be much different then what we get from Solaris 9 now.
That would be one awesome system. I'd buy one just to see 'ps' work correctly on a Sun again without having to put /usr/ucb in the path.
No.
I'm not sure I concur with the opinion stated in the OP.
Linux is always going to be around.
Solaris, OTOH, is owned by Sun, and they may change their strategy, and stop open sourcing the OS, and they may fail as a company (something which in the long run seems possible, since they appear to lack direction and occupy an ever shrinking market segment).
--
Toby
OK, imagine with me...
/atleast/ on par if not far ahead feature-for-feature with their competition. Yet, they arn't adopted more than their niche(but rabid) markets.
Sun has, in Solaris 10, arguably the most powerful core OS of any on the market for general/server/production use(not counting embedded, rt, or mainframe systems and I know not enough about them). They have some killer stats, powerful new features, and amazing development coming out. This all sits under xorg+gnome for a gui...
ok, transition time... please don't kill me, just hear me out...
Apple(*ducks*) has arguably, the most powerful gui on the market. Feature wise, simplicity, elegance and consistant... Very powerful, though not perfect, ofcourse. Darwin is a nice enough system but doesn't have much more the 'average' features. Nothing makes it have a selling point other than it exists and it is freebsd-like.
What both companies have is an amazing half OS that by all accounts is
I propose a merger. Sun is marginally(25-50%, i think) larger than Apple income wise and whanot. Merging the two systems, the Aqua and solid gui on top of Solaris 10 core system. This would take time and would coincide with the System 11 release(ironically) for both companies.
To make this really work though, they need to migrate. Procide highend workstations and servers(as Sun and Apple always have) but offer a lowend as well... Sun offers x86 systems for lowend servers, and has talked about a ppc port of solaris. Personally, I think ppc is superior, with IBM's work they have made it very powerful. But an AMD64 system would be fine as well.
The companies need to flood the markets with their OS, even if it is on amd64, only, at a less-supported(community support for the free version)... I mean, send free boxed copies of their software to every university with a cs department, free of charge. They need to literally hand this software out to everyone they can. Free download for personal or non-profit use (minimum) and have a good resource/community site for support.
The more open the system the better, but both companies use open source where it makes sense in their systems, not because they are sucking up, but because it is the best choice for the product.
PS. yes, I know Apple is a hardware company. I wrote this on my 12" pbook. Sun is a hardware company too, which makes demand for an operating system that(for full use/support like sparc or ppc's cooler features) require a more highend(expensive) machine.
IBM does this with Linux, they are a hardware company using a generic operating system on highend machines.
no.
[Got Hosting?]
...why someone would even run Solaris x86. Solaris loses all of its appeal when not running on Sun hardware. IMO, Solaris x86 will remain as obscure as SCO. They just can't compete with *BSD and Linux.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
If Sun would concentrate on increasing the x86 hardware support for Solaris, Linux would see some competition. Solaris has the capability to be infinitely more secure than Linux; ask any Solaris administrator to compare Solaris's process accouting versus FreeBSD's or Linux, and he'll slap you. Solaris features ipfilter, as does FreeBSD. I'm lucky enough to have a fully supported Xeon workstation, with the exception of sound. As I always say, "just because it's open source doesn't it make it good."
There's nothing in the foreseeable future that will "kill" Linux. I'm not saying that some latest-greatest free OS wouldn't be adopted faster than Linux...
But when it comes down to it, what incentive is there to *stop using* Linux? High license costs? Nope, not for most users. Getting repeatedly burned by security problems? Nope, not if you keep it decently patched.
With Windows or other closed source OSs, there's often a financial incentive to actually *stop using* that OS. But if you run Linux and it works for you, and you have a support structure in place to maintain it, I can't see many reasons to actually bail.
My bicyles
Most of the comments I've see so far are essentially "No." I disagree, but before I do so I'll make the following assumptions:
a) Sun uses a real open source license - meaning GPL compatible. This is unlikely, and if they don't Linux isn't going anywhere.
b) Sun doesn't reserve major high end components of the system. If they do, they are essentially another Linux with different and unfamiliar source code. Solaris can do some things well that Linux isn't good at, but if Sun cuts it down, game over. Open source Solaris is a non-starter.
NOW, let's assume they do it the Right Way. Several things immediately happen. Solaris has a good track record in high end servers that has been earned through experience. That gives it a lot of interest right there. Now, with real open source, drivers from Linux start arriving in droves. Intel performance is improved. GNU tools become standard parts of the system at almost all levels. Solaris becomes a more robust Linux, with a proven commercial track record.
Now, remember - to everyone above kernel level, KDE on Linux vs. KDE on Open Solaris is going to look VERY similar. Ditto for any other user (and even most developer) tools. Parts of Solaris that annoy users suddenly are fixable, and get fixed. Open Solaris can now go head to head with Linux, as a tier one platform for virtually all open source applications.
The parts of Linux that are not available in Solaris will be adsorbed in. Things like Dtrace are already available on Solaris, and not available on Linux. As people rapidly add in the goodies, Solaris adsorbs Linux's strengths (drivers, file systems, etc.) while leveraging Solaris's robust, tested, industry strength core. As far as I know, there is very little about Linux to fundamentally recommend it over Solaris, except for it's ability to function well on many platforms. If Solaris proves able to do this (impossible to say right now, but I'm assuming well done code will be able to do this, given enough eyes and hours) Linux will essentially dissolve into Solaris, and the end product will be Open Solaris with the best parts of Linux preserved. Does that constitute killing Linux? I wouldn't say so. If you mean will Linus stop being the prime mover, maybe, but the effort put into Linux will survive.
So I, for one, would welcome our GPL Solaris overlords, because the only thing that will happen is net gains all around, regardless of whether the end product is called Solaris or Linux.
Now, do I believe Sun will Do It Right? Nope. But I sure hope they do.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Read the license- they can call it "open", but it's just as convoluted and restrictive as any proprietary license. Sun wants the F/OSS community to love them and quit debunking Sun's FUD, but they don't want to actually do anything to deserve it.
we will end no whine before its time
As soon as the chinese make mac clones OSX will win the day.
Quick question: who actually USES MS support contracts? I mean, really - does anyone?
Open sourced Solaris might surpass Linux if and only if Sun released it under license that would allow me to make a Solaris distro, name it Slowaris, and still get away with it.
In other words, on a particularly cold day in hell...
Anyway, Here's a copy of the article on linuxtoday.com.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
No. So why do you think Solaris will?
I once has a poster that had a VHS tape and a Beta tape on it. In the Beta tape was Sun's OpenView and in the VHS was OSF's Motif. Motif of course being supported but all the other major vendors at the time (IBM, HP, DEC, etc..) You whould think Sun would have learned from that.
Really, how goddamn stupid do you have to be to make such a ludicrous claim? Afterall, we all know that nobody needs more than 640K of RAM, the world will only ever need a handful of computers, and MP3 is dead.
HA HA HA HA HA!
Meh.
My mistake. I should have looked before I posted.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
I'll believe it when I see it - although for some strange reason I almost wrote "I'll see it when I see believe it"
However this is relatively speaking a niche market. What you have done is argue excellently why Sun will retain their current customers. The article beginning this thread, however, seemed to be of the opinion Sun will begin to take customers away from Linux. The circumstances of a niche Sun is currently the more-significant player in do not really apply to that.
Now the editors are just trolling.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
What games will be available for Solaris?
BC
This is only to get people to think Sun open sourcing Solaris 10 is gonna be good for them so they'll run out and buy some new Sun kit in anticipation.
Interestingly, it appears that the article has been taken down. I get the following when trying to get to the site: "Were sorry, the information you requested is not available on YEALD. Any similar content is listed below. Alternatively, please go to YEALDs homepage or use the search function." It's not a case of the site being loaded because all of the comments still appear. Looks like someone's a tad embarrassed at angering the penguin! Of course, everyone should have known what was going to happen when the first line read: "Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert.;"
the bottom line is sun hardware is more expensive than intel. sure sun is better but better means more expensive, which some IT shops don't want to pay for. I wonder what the support level will be for open source solaris 10. I think linux will still reign. It is a desparate attempt of sun to get back on the map, and stop losing money but spurring hardware sales. They should have done this years ago, the problem is the real margins is in software, not hardware.
IF Solaris is open sourced under a real libre licence, and IF it manages to offer real accesible features that are a major improvment over GNU/Linux, then mabey it will be the next big thing, however I doubt it, but more important what does it matter? The important thing is the licence, I don't care if a Sun idependent libre Solaris "wins" or GNU/Linux does, it doesn't matter as in this highly unlikly senario they are both libre software wich is the important part not the name.
As an employee for a very large ISP (the one that's dispised), I can say that Linux is going to win this one. Sun has been the primary platform for the last 5 years, and now many of those old 400mhz Sun boxes are coming off lease. Their replacments are all Linux. Why? Simple - It's disposable. The hardware, the software, everything. Once we use it up, we throw it away like a bent paperclip. Sun simply can't compete. For one thing, their prices are still insane (not Apple Hardware insane, but close). Their support, while excellent, is way too expensive. In fact, it's so expensive, that third parties offer discount Sun support. HP does. And third, their hardware underperforms.
Compare that with run of the mill dual proc 3Ghz Intel boxes, which are super fast, cheaper than a used Camry, and abundant. And Linux runs great on them.
Linux has won this contest, and this is Suns attempt at making amends to all those customers they raped for the last 10 years by overcharging for support and hardware.
I think that we've been arguing from a fallacious standpoint. The purpose of being public domain is to make systems interoperable and to benefit from the intellectual efforts of other open source ventures.
A simple question: Why?
For anyone who has used the Solaris operating systems knows that there are many non-POSIX compliant and fairly obsolete programs packaged with the OS. To speak frankly, I have not used Solaris 9, but find it unlikely that they have been able to reproduce all of the GNU created features and improvements, nor would they want to.
Sure, they have a slew of Sun proprietary applications for such things as security management, their own filesystem with logging/journaling, and gobs of support from other vendors such as Oracle, but they are falling far behind the open source community in the areas of system useability and interoperability. Anyone who has tried to conduct simple administrative tasks and write some shell scripts finds annoying differences in basic commands. Those programs that are ported from the GNU community lag farther behind than needed.
Going open source has benefits. Sun is releasing this as an open source project so that their operating system can benefit by the incorporation of GNU licenced software. They will be able to concentrate development effort on their core technology while reaping the benefits of GNU technology.
Benefits for Linux
All of those great proprietary applications that I mentioned above are going to either be directly available for porting (a la Open Source), or much easier for Sun to port for other systems. This improves the number and potentially the quality of Linux management applications.
Solaris is a Unix. This cannot be bad for Linux. Interoperability is one of the key problems with Unix/Linux. Another Unix system joining the Open Source efforts will provide another choice for consumers and provide collaborative potential with existing Linux projects.
In brief
Another significant open source operating system on the market is good for everybody!
This is obviously wishful thinking from the Sun-lovers crowd.
Kind of sad actually.
Meh.
How many years has BSD been dying for?
"Open Source" is a trademark... the OSI should be sending letters to all the journalists and to Sun saying that they must not use the "Open Source" mark until the license is finalised, available to the public and OSI approved.
It doesn't even make sense to call this Open Source because it is air-ware... nothing is real, Sun can talk for years but they should not be allowed to claim Open Source until they deliver some goods.
Just like Windows NT killed UNIX.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Sun doesn't get it. Their sense of open source only works when you write FOSS like this: F|=O$$.
As said before:
1) no Solaris on a mobile phone
2) no Solaris on a laptop/notebook/pda
3) no Solaris on a media centre
4) no Solaris in an automotive ECM, and so on.
I've talked to their PR people, and Sun engineers. They DON'T get it. Their idea of community is a country club. It's stockholder interests that they have at heart. That's ok.
What's not ok is to make believe that they're going to get Linux Love by putting on a blond wig and some lipstick.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Logically Java should be the Sun product that gets the Open Source goodness first. Java isn't a core business for Sun; it's core business is Solaris and Sparc. Why should they OS their core business when they won't OS their peripheral interests firsts?
Move along, now. Nothing to see but FUD.
H
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
I said pretty much the same thing a few days ago and was instantly modded to troll. Not once, but three times making the same point.
Sun doesn't have a good record on this, and (no matter how many times you quote RMS) "opening" the source doesn't make it truly open.
Uh oh, now I've done it again. let's see how long it takes to get modded down this time...
Solaris 10 installs have been slightly successful on laptops. As for the rest of the consumer devices you stated, I'm happy with the way they are, and hope Linux doesn't infect them.
The more I realize that all you need to get your article posted on the Internet anymore is to have the patience to actually type up the crap you want to spew.
Between Solaris killing Linux, Bill Gates telling me that my passwords are obsolete, and Steve Ballmer telling me that my free Linux OS somehow costs more than Windows, I now have this mechanical brick on the floor and I don't know what to do with it.
Not that well. Linux is leaps and bounds ahead of Solaris in terms of hardware support on x86. Don't be such a Solaris fanboy, you know you'll just lose in the end.
Meh.
"Will Open Source Kill Solaris"?
There is a whole philosophy and way of life behind it. Solaris can't touch Linux. Not even a bit.
Meh.
Your site (thehumorarchives.com) begs for the "next" button. Going back to "menu" just to pick the next joke HURTS!
By the mere statement of "Sun's main strength is that many commercial users", they have effected a monopolistic lock-in, much like Microsoft does, open-source or not.
Again, it boils down to the sheer number of quality contributor toward the Open-Source Solaris, of which I read into their license, as being more encompassing than GPL or Mozilla; in fact, it reeks of proprietary lock-in.
Whatever kind of weed this guy is smoking, he really ought to share.
What the hell is he talking about? People will use Slowlaris if it's free? Like that's the only reason we're not using it? Please.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
What SUN and many others miss is that the most compelling thing about linux and linux distributions isnt the system in itself, its the license its released under. The GPL license is a protection against malicious corporations and what prevents anybody from gaining strangelhold. It forces corporations to work together with the users in a never before seen way. I and many with me will not migrate to a license that makes it possible for SUN to just rip the floor from under our feet in five years time. Even a GPL license will be very scrutinized so that all the bases are covered and not just some parts of the system.
I think they put all to much weight into peoples cheapness and think that GNU/linux is all about money. Well a big part of the money bit is to not let anyone lock you in like MS did. I find this a desperate move from SUN who cant decide what leg to stand on. MS is sure to be happy to have one single entity to crush if SUN should gain foothold with Solaris. With linux its just not possible to stomp it out in one blow.
HTTP/1.1 400
While I'm a GNU/Linux user myself, I can't understand all those people who insist on pitting Linux vs. BSD, Debian vs. Redhat, or Gnome vs. KDE. If opensource Solaris is as free as Java is now, I doubt it will make much headway. But if Sun licenses Solaris the way it licensed OpenOffice, then I guess Linux is in danger. But who would care then, but the few Linux überzealots? Redhat is already packaging OpenOffice into their OS offerings. I fancy in the future, they might come up with a co-branded Redhat Solaris. Maybe we could even hear of Linus contributing patches to make sure free Solaris interoperates well with legacy Linux.
Steven, even if Sun releases Solaris as open source,
.NET implementation).
I'd suggest that their *real* motive can be summed up in two words:
code taint
1. Patent anything interesting (already done?)
2. Release source (allegedly open)
3. Wait for somebody to put code derived from said
source into Linux
4. Go into SCO attack mode.
Spending $500 million to develop an open source version of their OS seems to be suicidal, unless the real reason is something else (or maybe I've
been watching that famous Gene Hackmann movie too much!). (I suspect that the "open source" licence
will be similar to the "open licence" that MS
is using for their model
Andy.
Unfortunately for you, the "philosophical garbage" is a huge driving force behind Linux. Like it or not, you lose.
Meh.
Heh - it's worse then that. The story is a finely crafted troll, and it has all the hallmarks of such. I never thought I would see the day that Slashdot had to import it's trolls from outside ;-)
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
BSD is dead.
"Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?"
NO!
Do you really think the hardware vendors who now have linux in their lines will let Sun eat their market share? Even with x86 Solaris from Sun as a token of collaboration in the IA platfrom, you can be sure the hardware guys will be pushing back. Not to mention Intel.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Solaris full of copyrighted, licensed SysV code? Solaris is also a SCO License holder. How on earth could Sun even attempt to OpenSource it?
Well, the site's been slashdotted...
Linux isn't about the OS, it's about the community. At this late date, could any kind of realistic Open Source Solaris get the kind of mindshare Linux has among the people who are in a position to do something useful with it?
The Linux distros only had a year or two community-growth head start over the BSD releases, for example, and BSD was much further ahead of Linux technically... but Linus had the right formula and Linux took off.
Now the distance between Red Hat or Suse and Solaris is much less, and Linux has been growing as an open source OS for a decade and change... I don't see any reason to worry about an Open Source Solaris kicking its butt.
... I don't have mod points today. I'll get you next time.
Apparently Sun has been able to communicate with Linux user's over the Internet. They sent them the following message:
"We're about to release Solaris as Open Source. We're going to completely take over the OS market and if you resist us we're going to sue you for patent infringement. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we relase it is to stop using Linux."
Oh come on, how many times does this argument have to be debunked? Lets try repeating your post but saying 'computer' every time you said linux...
Written like that, the flaw in the argument is painfully obvious. You might have a computer in your wristwatch, in your microwave, controlling your stereo, and managing the local powerplant, but they still make perfectly good desktop machines. Why? Because somebody (Microsoft) has chosen a subset of computers and presented them as a neat little package. And guess what, just because you can have a computer running your stereo doesn't prevent microsoft offering you a computer on your desktop.
Returning to Linux, that means you should not be asking if 'linux' is ready for the desktop any more than you should be asking if 'computers' are ready for the desktop. Instead you should be asking if 'fedora', or 'mandrake', or 'linspire', or 'xandros' are ready for the desktop.
Now, the answer to that might be 'yes' or 'no' depending on your point of view, but you can see that none of these offer 10000 ways to close a window. They also go out of their way to present only one window manager (though if you know what you're doing you can change which one). Xandros even drops programs if they don't match the standard interface.
I would never move our users or server from Solaris to any flavor of Linux. Solaris is so much better it's hard to count the benifits.
God kills a kitten.
duh. like seriously... lay off the crack-cocaine, at least before posting crap.
In a way, they go after very different target markets. Solaris is more for the enterprise, Linux is more at a server or workstation for personal or small business. Taking up the rear end of Linux is simply a following attempt to take some hype away... but you just can't UNDO all of the Linux hype that exists. Every manager or everyone who reads the paper sees Linux and everyone is talking about it. It's a buzz word- like it or not. Solaris has been around for forever and isn't a buzz word. There's usually a reason for that. Linux was built by the community and guided by a select few. Solaris would be GPL'd but would still be owned. Linux has expanded greatly on x86 architecture to include all the latest hardware support. USB, software and hardware RAID, graphics and audio boards, etc. If you can name it, Linux can probably at least do _something_ with it. If Solaris wants to do this, they have a LOT of catching up to do. -M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Been using Linux as server for an ISP company since 1995. Not just a hobby. Not just a philosophy.
Meh.
...because it seems to stay up and alive forever, even though everyone knows it's dead ;-)
There sure are a lot of bold predictions made by both camps considering "Open Solaris" is barely off the ground--is it a true "Free Software" license or is it somewhat encumbered like Java? Will a development community like Mozilla foundation be set up? Even if it is all done "right" it'll probably take years to get the ball rolling in earnest...an eternity in the industry. If I ever made such a bold prediction as "open Solaris will kill Linux" or "Linux will always rule because it had such a big head start" I'd go dig out my Byte and Compute magazines from the early 80s to see what the experts predicted for the next 5 to 20 years. That way it keeps my confidence in check and I won't look quite so foolish in 2010 or 2015 or later.
I click the link I get yet another reason to fear Java...
E xception(RequestProcessor.java:545)
... and it goes on...
HTTP Status 500 -
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
javax.servlet.ServletException
at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process
at
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
I don't know who "this guy" is, so I don't know any particular reason why he might have an axe to grind, but...
The article sure reads like it. Sounds like it was written by a marketting department. Since when is much of anything about open source Solaris "proven". It doesn't even exist yet. And Sun has a decidedly mixed history of changing their mind about what platforms they will support on Solaris. I know people whose systems got orphaned when Sun decided to drop an X86 version of Solaris (along with a Sun-branded X86 box) some time ago.
I one wants to do an impartial analysis, fine. But I'm afraid that I can't regard something as impartial when it spouts marketting material like this. Right now, open source Solaris is very much an unproven thing; if it doesn't "fly", Sun could decide to pull it next year. Maybe it will do well, but it certainly isn't "proven."
Got a whole page of HTTP 500 error dump from Apache Tomcat/4.1.24-LE-jdk14.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Solaris is no more likely to make converts of Linux fan-boys than Linux is to make converts of Unix supporters. Solaris needed a boost in speed, which it apparently gets with version 10. Even if it didn't, I prefer Solaris because it's more stable than Linux, and better at multitasking. We just switched two of our fileservers over from Solaris to Linux (part of a hardware change) and OMFG ... the Linux boxes are so finicky and sensitive, much less robust than Solaris. Sun doesn't have to worry about Linux getting market share anyway, Linux is currently self-limiting.
Give me a break. The minute Sun open sources Solaris the ubergeeks will be all over the code picking out the high valued features. Those will be patched into Linux. Usable improvements from Linux (which one could presume is a motivation for open sourcing Solaris) will be patched into Solaris...looks like an OS hypertransport effect to me.
Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?
I'll keep my fingers crossed!!! ;)
Solaris won't be a Linux killer unless it can beat out Linux on it's most popular platform (x86). After Windows, Linux is most likely the best OS for hardware support on x86.
Even if Solaris manages to over take Linux on x86, there is still Alpha, ARM, HPPA, ia64, m68k, mips, PowerPC, s390, and Sparc platforms to tackle. And that's just what you can install Debian on.
Solaris has a long, long way to go before you can call it a Linux killer.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Except Solaris x86 won't run on 'any kind of hardware' because their HCL is pitifully short. Heck, it didn't even support the S3 864 video card and SB16 on the 1995-era 486 I tried it on. I don't think it turned on IDE disc DMA either. In 1998. This was the same hardware I bought for Slackware 2.2.0 (and which it worked perfectly with from day one), dammit.
And if, as I expect, Sun don't GPL it (or GPL-compatible, at least), then I can't see many of the interesting drivers making it across as many of them will be easiest to port from the Linux kernel. The X server might get a few drivers, and some BSD kernel drivers might get ported, but IMHO, Linux's HCL is second only to Windows on x86 these days. Heck, if you run it on SPARC, you can even use devices that Solaris/SPARC doesn't support!
Solaris/SPARC has its place, but x86 has missed its opportunity. Sun should have open sourced it before 1999 or so if they wanted to beat Linux on commodity hardware. Or they should have pulled them collective finger out and wrote more and better drivers than us ragtag collection of volunteers - esepcially seeing as signing NDAs isn't a problem for Sun, but it is for us.
--
In order for anything to be adopted by the open source community people have to feel passionate about the programming.
In order for people to be passionate they must be able to easily and quickly get some positive results from the code. For an example of how this works see the continued success of Knoppix and the more recent success of MEPIS.
Both distros offer instant gratification, and thus people, and developers (or more accurately contributors, who contribute to the projects in the for of more puplicity, answering tech questions in forums, posting how-tos, etc) have flocked to these distros and made them very popular in a short time.
I'm not saying solaris will not be able to do that, but my guess is that initially it won't work easily on "generic" hand build hardware that is very popular in the hobbiest / non-production environments of the world.
So the lack of hardware sopport will mean less people can be passionate, and the less people that are passionate means less people will contribute, so it will have an uphill battle to distplace Linux in any market.
My guess is that if it is successfull it will have a dedicated following comparable to the various BSDs. If it is not successfull, it will relish in obsurity, as Linux continues to grow.
Drink your penguin piss like a real penguin, but don't assume that everyone else wants to drink it. /. has always been tainted with penguins bashing the competition. Funny to see all of them get riled up when someone else says that their POS OS ain't gonna live...
Penguin taste like chicken...
I never want any UNIX controlling my engine management, and I'd appreciate it staying out of my phone.
solaris and linux can not and should not be compared. Solaris will never eclipse linux because it sux on intel based systems. Sun is a hardware co. -- on of the reasons why they are now giving away solaris = to sell more hardware. Solaris does now and will always suck on intel based systems. linux rules the intel platform machines.
Unless this issue is addressed, no one will want it.
>>leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem<<
uhhh...unless of course they replace Linux with Solaris in their GNU distros (that is assuming that Solaris is so amazingly better than Linux which I doubt very much).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
If you have not used Fedora, RedHat, Xandros or SuSe your commnet is completely extemporaneous.
Fedora or RedHat for example are pretty much Gnome or KDE and noting else.
Xandros is KDE.
And so on and so forth.
If you are working with Debian, Slackware or Linux from scratch, well, duh! Flexibility is an importnat facor in having freedom.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well, seeing how Solaris has this nasty tendency to take mental constructs and create physical manifestations of lost relatives, lost wife, etc., using a stabilized field of neutrinos, it will probably freak people out too much to really be able to take over Linux's market share.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
- If they go really GPL-ish, SUN code will be used to improve Linux even further. Ergo: Linux will grow.
- If they don't, they will not get a decent developer base. They win nothing. Ergo: Linux will grow.
Sounds like a no-lose situation for Linux IMHO...
Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword."
Luke 22:36
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I predict that in 2004 onwards, all percentage predictions will be 99.9% (recurring) public relations hype and misinformation.
I have the figures to prove it too.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Apparently a fact or two in support of your claim that Linux is pulled in 100 directions at once or that there are 10,000 ways to close a window is too much to ask -- nevermind evidence that these things have caused actual harm. What you're saying amounts to this: ignorance is truth, strength is weakness and so on. Good luck getting that message across. Should you ever decide to rejoin the real world however, you'll want to be aware of a few simple facts.
First, distribtions based on Linux already have a stronger presence than Solaris on the desktop. Maybe that's because there is no schizophrenic marketing department to do the hokey pokey on support for popular commodity hardware. One of the most successful promoters of Linux on the desktop is... well, Sun Microsystems. That is what the current "Java" Desktop system is built on, you know. A company that changes its strategy every other Thursday for no apparent reason doesn't inspire confidence.
As for picking a path and sticking to it, that isn't exactly something the Solaris developers are famous for on the desktop. They started with OpenWindows, moved to CDE and are now moving to Gnome. That's right, they are abandoning their desktop environment in favor of one that grew up on Linux based systems. Meanwhile companies like Novell are offering streamlined distributions based on Linux with sensible defaults for window managers, word processors and everything else.
Finally, while the Mozilla project was able to successfully build a free software product from a formerly proprietary code base, they had no credible competition for capable developers in that space. They also settled managed to settle on a license -- something Sun has yet to do. Maybe someday Solaris will catch up and offer meaningful competition. Maybe. Most of the world will wait to see if a free software Solaris can actually tread water on the desktop before declaring it the fastest swimmer in the pool. But don't let such simple and obvious facts distract you from daydreams in fantasy upside-down land where versatility is a weakness and offering people choices is a disadvantage.
Not all those who wander are lost.
I too find all the zealotry on here rather odd. I can understand SuSE/RedHat et al wanting everyone to use linux -- they make money from it. And I can understand developers wanting people to use their software because of the warm fuzzy feeling/ego trip/feeling of superiority they get.
But I can't understand why so many people who just happen to use linux are so evangelical about it. It's a mystery. Listen carefully:
** Getting your granny to use linux will NOT make it any better for you. **
If linux ever does get the kind of desktop market which windows enjoys, we'll have all the problems we used to have all over again. I moved to linux way back when it was a PITA to use, mainly so I could tell my family "Oh, you use Windows. Sorry can't help." For the last 5 years or so I've been able to avoid giving free tech support to all and sundry, and I do not want that to change.
Zealots, please, for the sake of familial-tech-support victims everywhere: turn your advocacy to the Mac cause! That way (a) we destroy the evil that is microsoft, (b) we can get a hemi-demi-semi-decent shell when we go to visit grandma and most importantly (c) we can still claim ignorance.
Phil
I guess today is a passable day to die.
self.parent += 1, Funny
Go on mods, you know you want to...
And all those folks who said "slashdot doesn't have a defined community mentality..."
Sure can't tell it from here. Seems apparent Apple isn't the only evil corporation with a bunch of brainwshed zealots carefully guarding the door.
"Momma always said..."
Solaris will never replace linux. Solaris and linux should not even be compared. Sun is a hardware co., they want to sell more hardware. That is why they are giving away their little solaris build. Solaris sux on intel based systems, always has, always will. Not to mention the lack of support/drivers available for any hardware build that isn't from Sun. Linux on the other hand is at home on the most dominent computer builds in the world and getting better.
Extrapolating from this, I'm not worried about OSS Solaris killing off anything -- it looks nice on the outside, but has no substance inside. ;)
Ok, so solaris is opened up and replaces the linux kernel. It's open, that means redhat, novell, and ibm get in roads into another whole kernel tree.
Let's say every linux kernel hacker jumps ship to OpenSolaris. Then yes the *linux* kernel stagnates. Big deal. What userland hackers see are layers at libc and higher anyway.
The power of open source with open api's is that you aren't tied to a particular component. If linux dies at the hands of an OPEN SOURCE solaris then the linux kernel has completed it's mission by helping the OPEN state of the art to evolve.
As an open source/linux advocate i may be biased, but, i have not seen a single comment/article/thought about the potential security impact to solaris. Yes, I know, open source in the long run can harden and improve a product.
But, I'd be willing to bet in the next 12 months, you're going to see a slew of solaris patchs, some probably impacting achient versions of solaris that i'm sure many people are still using. With the legacy/history that solaris has, i'd bet there will be something like The age of buffer overflows that linux has expierenced over the last 6 years. And if that happens, you're going to see a slew of patches from Sun and people running away from Solaris, not to it.
That 5 year old ultra 2 running in your closet or that E3000 is going to need alot more attention, especially when solaris compromises are commonplace. I see this as fueling the migration trend from Solaris to Linux, not slowing/killing it.
Solaris may be a "proven" OS in the closed source arena. But it has a LONG way to go to prove itself all over again in the open waters of Open Source. And linux is ahead of that game by eons in tech-years.
Oracle, MathWorks and ESRI can do it (simultaneous support of multiple distros in a binary release).
Why can't they?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I have 4 sun blades and they are continuous trouble... so much work to maintain. And why does the patchset take 8 hours to install on a new install. Come on! It took 10 minutes to download. Now if I can get openafs onto a mac cluster w/ integrated linux boxen, I will be a very happy camper.
I mean, NFS, NIS and PAM weren't GPL.
Then how they did they get into the Linux kernel?
The same way everything else does...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There needs to be a standard since I do not want to learn different ways of doing things. If I learn KDE at home but my work has GNOME or the library has brandX desktop, that is annoying.
Why is there so many desktops anyway, couldn't someone merge the best out of each? Usually a fork is created because there was a lack, what was the lack in KDE / GNOME that the other was designed to overcome?
To get the KDe/GNOME ppl together, merge the products so we can have something of a standard. People are free to use their own custom nonstandardized desktops, but the rest of us will only have one desktop to learn ontop of all the other things to learn with Linux.
However, they're still pretty small right now, and with not too large a customer base. This allows them prompt, responsive service. (It probably helps that most people that deal with them are as willing as they are to do some problem solving/sleuthing-type work).
This could change as the install base gets much larger, and more people start demanding more of them (with less critical feedback).
Larger support staff means it's more difficult to prioritize fixes, means more staff costs, etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
You have to first see what makes Linux popular. Its not simply because its opensource.
Linux runs on a large array of hardware, has drivers for (almost) everything under the sun, not withstanding ATM cards, has a massive binary base (for x86) now, and has many technicians who can configure it.
If Sun releases Solaris under BSD or GPL type licenses, you still cant run DOOM3 on it, using nvidia drivers, at the same speed. Instead, Solaris' benefits will bleed into Linux (many many posters are saying this), and to a smaller extent Solaris will benefit from Linux, but in its own niche market.
To think of it in a different way, Solaris is a server OS. So it might be in competition with Linux in the server market. But getting an OS for a large scale SMP server, or server farm never depends on whether its opensource. It depends on quality, capability and to a much smaller extent, price. Both OSes excel in the quality dept, Linux will be more capable with an opensource Solaris, but the current Solaris is cheap enough to be free (compare with Microsoft windows Advanced Server).
So even in the server market, Solaris might be ceding ground to Linux by being opensource. It will boost ( I suspect) Sun hardware sales, so Sun doesnt lose, Solaris will gain with benefits from Linux and the community, but will lose a little market share, and Linux will gain. All assuming Solaris is released under a BSD-like or GPL-like license.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Solaris does have a good cost/performance ratio. Especially if you buy their hardware (the OS is free most times). It's also quite good for what it's designed to do.
But it certainly isn't very flexible, and it can be obtuse. Thankfully, it's very "open" and you can pretty much get any question answered about how any part of it works. Now, changing how it works is a different thing entirely. With linux, it's a non-issue. With Solaris, well, you better pick up some Sun publications and a copy of Forte.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Open source Solaris 10 will win big time in the corporate server area, thanks to its flawless inter-operation with Longhorn on desktop. Add to that seamless integration of Palm OS 6.0 Cobalt and my new home on Mars will be set.
Finally there will be some good platform to play Duke Nukem Forever in multiplayer mode with my friends. Thanks to FTL Internet I will even be able to attend realtime matches against Earthlings. And maybe against Jaffa, though they are one hard motherhumpers to beat, thanks to their larval Goa'uld symbionts.
Robert
PS Don't you just love those praising nonexistent products nowhere near the horizon, and how they will squash all the competition? When or if they arrive. Eventually.
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
SUN may have a great kernel design based on their many years of experience. However, on the x86 platform any such gain due to their kernel and other software is lost due to poor HW compatibility. I installed Solaris 10 Beta on my PC and found a variety of issues. I finally gave up and switched back to Debian. Sean
"Open Source" is not a trademark, it was rejected.
I want to like Sun, I really do. But apart from not knowing where in the market they want to be, besides the top, and vowing that they are not following HP and IBM without declaring what they will do. I think these guys are just running around in circles screaming at anyone who will listen.
First they are releasing Mad Hatter, then they are crushing Linux with Solaris. First they are Open Sourcing Java, then they are not, then they are again, but not. They just prove why Open Source is superior to proprietary software, with that much confusion running the show I don't want to depend on anything they have absolute control over.
On top of that, out-of-the-box Solaris has the oldest toolchain I have ever seen. grep is not recursive, find does not allow -i for ignore case, and tons of other little annoyances compared to Linux.
I am sorry, but on x86, Solaris has nothing over Linux. Now if your running some big Sparc boxes, then that is the only place Solaris shines from stability. SUN only had Sparc to target with very limited hardware support, so you would expect a very stable server. However, when it comes to commodity x86 servers up to 8 way, Linux just pulls far past Solaris.
One question I have for the /. crowd is has anyone seen this "Open" source license for Solaris? Is it going to be just as "Open" as Java? I personally do not consider that very open. To me the only way I would consider Solaris Open Source is if I could say fork the Solaris kernel and start my _own_ Solaris kernel. Now you know SUN will never let that happen. I think SUN's idea of Open Source is allowing you to look at the code, and if you are a big enough company maybe join some committee. As of now, I personally think that all this "Open" Solaris talk is just that, talk.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Solaris and Linux are used for servers yes, but Linux has much more applications than just the server market, it's also used as a pretty sweet desktop OS. I highly doubt that Solaris has the embedded support that Linux has. This sounds so much like when people said that OSX would take over linux and solaris. Also I am not sure how many people have tried to install Solaris but ..... ouch it does not have the greatest driver support at the moment as opposed to linux. But also if Sun really wants to kill linux then they will need to be not only open source but maybe it would take GNU to knock Linux of it's position.
With comments like this sun is going after the management types who are not even sure what linux is but are worried that this sun thing might take it over. But then I guess only time will tell :-) .
As examples of where that "stockholder" mentality shows up:
"man syseventadm", -v vendor
The string specifying the vendor defining the event. Events defined by third-party software should use the company's stock symbol. Sun-defined events use SUNW.
"man pkginfo",
PKG* Abbreviation for the package being installed. All characters in the abbreviation must be alphanumeric and the first may not be numeric. The abbreviation is limited to a maximum length of 32 characters. install, new, and all are reserved abbreviations. It is customary to make the first four letters unique to your company, such as the company's stock symbol.
I would specify the OP. Will open source Solaris kill Linux in the datacenter/workstation market, where it has up to this point gained the most ground?
In the sense of killing linux, ofcourse not. Linux cannot 'die'.
In the sense that putting linux in such an unfavorable(sub par, in comparison) competition with Solaris in highend workstation, low/med-end servers(high end servers are still true unix, aix/solaris/hp-ux/etc) then yes, I think, conceivably, Solaris has that chance. Atleast to the point of setting Linux back so far as to virtually kill it for professional use...
Now will it? No. I don't think so. Solaris needs to get some new life breathed into it, while Sun cannot, at the same time, break binary compatability with Solaris 2.6! It is a juggling act that I don't think Sun can manage. In theory, yes, it could happen. In reality? No. No it won't.
Here is hoping for the two of them to move towards a revival in unix-like/based systems, though. More competition is a GOOD THING. Microsoft needs, NEEEDS, to get a black eye, so that they too feel threatened.
Will Solaris talk MIDI to my cheapo builtin sound card and find the interner via my half NIC and how long until $50 Epson printers come with Solaris drivers?
For me, it doesn't really matter which of the various open source POSIX-like operating systems wins. So long as the source really is open, it's relatively easy to pop in a syscall / library emulation layer into one to run the binaries compiled for another. I use FreeBSD primarily, and the Linuxulator can run things like the Linux JRE 1.5 and other things for which I don't have source code.
The real losers here continue to be purveyors of closed-source operating systems. Open source has comoditized POSIX, and is well on its way towards comoditizing the entire broad OS category (listening, Microsoft?).
This has happened before, hasn't it? The creator of Minix shot his mouth off then, just like the Sun COO is shooting his off now. There isn't any grounds for this. Linux has a strong base because it -is- a "Hacker's Project". It means you can probably get something 'fixed' faster in the kernel than the development cycles of other projects. So, whereever Linux might be deficient now, it gets to the point where it'll be better. A year ago, 2.4.x was stable and there were massive problems. A year later, we have a stable 2.6.x tree with a supreme amount of functionality and performance, and patches which can leverage even more of that performance if we feel we should be on the bleeding edge. That's one of the big reasons which keeps me away from FreeBSD on my Desktop, let alone Windows. I wouldn't be surprised if Linus has a similar response to this as he did to the "Linux is Obsolete" dig. Though who would blame him?
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
I would think that the average person would look at this and say "Wow, that company values their product so little that they're going to give it away"... Open sourcing Solaris, while good for the community, doesn't seem like the kind of move that would look good to potential business's which chould be in the market for Solaris over another nix type OS.
Even if Solaris displaced Linux on every server and PC, that would not kill Linux. Most Linux usage is in embedded systems (phones, printers, TV sets,...). I don't see Solaris displacing Linux there anytime soon.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
On the Server end of things, it might be more competitive but I think it probably WON'T compete well on the desktop as Linux has the advantage for broader hardware support. When Sun killed its X86 Solaris support, they gave up alot of this ground (and any future interest in it) to Linux. There seems to be a much more interest from makers like nVidia to develop linux drivers next to their PC and Mac cousins.
Maybe "open source" will help close the gap, but Linux is definitely ahead in that arena.
Maybe if Sun's hardware gets a bit cheaper, that might help, too.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I was wondering can run Solaris and windoze in linux .
Answer, NO.
Open Solaris is technically "open" in the sense Linux is. Solaris is rooted in one company while Linux is a movement comprised of millions of bright individuals.
I'd say yes, likely for the same reasons I moved away from Linux and onto FreeBSD.
Yawn
/. that you guys keep commenting on the way Sun is falling behind on their share of the market?
Maybe the person who wrote the article hasn't heard how much money the "real" players in the industry, IBM, Novell,etc have sunk into using Linux. And wasn't it here on
My two bits
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
SUN thinks it's about what progress they achieved. Think of it as distance.
What they don't get is that the Linux and BSD comunities think differently, more along the lines of how long it took them to achieved it. Think of this as speed.
The community is attempting to infer from this how long it would take sun to provide them the next thing they'll want.
SUN has been CRAWLING in terms of innovation and cutting-edge support. You can see this in many aspects of the OS. Modern shells such as bash and tcsh were introduced very late. I work for a huge Aussie SUN shop, and most people here still use the default csh.
SUN still thinks regards x86 hardware as toys, even while selling powerful Opteron boxes. Solaris non-SUN hardware support is still stoneage-era (and a lot of needs both in big and small industry just don't justify such expensive and overpriced hardware)
Their kernel networking mechanism is a joke compared to Linux IPFilter and its humongous arsenal of features (think of mangling, application-based packet tagging, packetshaping, etc.) the variety of FreeBSD's arsenal of 3 firewalls (OpenBSD ipf, ipfw and OpenBSD pf). Sun's offering in this respect is also stoneage.
SUN is making a lot of noise about their covered a distance with their new licensing, revamped GUI and rich kernel. That's the only thing they see.
What they don't see, and everyone else does, is that due to the fact it took them SO BLOODY LONG to get there, they really have nothing to brag about. All I see is that anything NOT in the core OS will simply take another 10 years to get in there. On Linux or BSD, it would take a month for the flaky version if you can live with it, 6 months for a reasonably stable one, and a year for something at least as production-worthy as any other commercial product.
When I find SUN implementation references for a new technology I'm trying to use while researching on google before I find how to do it on my own system, then I'll consider switching.
Till then, Solaris 10 is still a barely-decent upgrade path for the dinasaur systems (in either size or age context), and one big joke when considered a solution for medium to small ones.
-
WTF does Linus have to do with Gnome and KDE, and freedesktop???
Both Gnome and KDE are independent of Linux, and there is no need for them to unify.
Distros are in the business of the desktop, and they already do a nice work of unifying. Well, most of them are choosing KDE, which I find sad, but logical given its MSWindows-familiar looks and dialogs.
I believe there is room for as many good desktops/graphical shells as there are (I'm still waiting for the Enlightenment shell!). Only distros need to standardize.
And Linux has nothing to do with that! He maintains a (great, compatible, available, free) kernel! we don't even need that specific kernel to run Gnome and KDE, why would he be the one to choose and not us??
Mirror #1
Mirror #2
Mirror #3
That's the difference, open source just means that you can see the source. Any implication on freedom is to be blamed on the reader.
The difference comes from free software.
When you know you are using free software, you are not subject to strange interpretations of the term. Free software ensures your freedom. Opensource doesn't make such promises.
i think we may put a hold on the funeral until we see what licence they release the code under, and what restrictions that will put on its use.
remeber that there is a reason for why RMS complains about the use of open source. sure the source may be open but that does not mean the software is free (in either way).
just look at microsofts shared source initiative. its open source without write rights.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Solaris initially get a major boost in HW support from Linux.
Help fight continental drift.
... is "Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?"
The question has an answer; the answer is No.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
If from start linus would have been more of a dreamer, and thought big when linux began to take off we might be in a whole nother ball park with linux today. His lack of control outside the kernel, and having no "official" distribution has created a such a segmented user base that it is very difficult to find one great solution to all. From packaging to the desktop. I don't blame linus in anyway, and respect him greatly. As by not having a standard in some ways has helped. But, currently linux just hasn't made it over the hump from geek to every day power user.. (not saying all) It's simply not easy enough to use, and it should be. Usability deffinitly wasn't the top priority with a lot of oss projects out there. Linux won't die, but it needs another revolution.
Later,
Phil
Open source Solaris won't kill Linux. Open source Solaris will kill Solaris.
Confused?
Here is how I see it:
Solaris 10 has a TON of nice features in it. When it becomes open source, you can bet your bottom dollar that most of those features will migrate their way into the Linux kernel. It may be a few years, but in that time Linux will only get better and better. Eventually, it will be a peer to Solaris.
The only way for Solaris to stay ahead is to innovate, innovate, innovate. Sounds like a Microsoft mantra to me.
Now, I really, really love Solaris. It is superior to Linux in several ways. I like Linux as an up-and-coming operating system, because it also has a lot to offer. I can just see the Linux kernel coders drooling over the Solaris source code.
Sun has done some really weird things these last few years. Either they have a long term master plan (that nobody knows about) or they are desperate as hell.
On the upside, this can only mean trouble for Microsoft and it's wacked out idea of an OS. So I am not too unhappy. And maybe THAT is SUN's master plan.
Q: What does an "Open Source" Solaris 10 provide that a proprietary Solaris 10 doesn't provide?
A: Nothing.
Solaris is not better because of being "Open Source". It's still the same old code, with no hacker contributions. So it's just plain old Solaris, for now.
Some people have been jabbering on about this or that point about "Solaris VS Linux". But that's like comparing Windows XP to Mac OS X.
Person 1: OPERATING SYSTEM 1 IS BETTER BECAUSE OF FEATURE.
Person 2: YEAH WELL OPERATING SYSTEM 2 DOESN'T HAVE OPERATING SYSTEM 1 DRAWBACK AND IT HAS PERFORMANCE STATISTIC.
Person 1: PERFORMANCE STATISTIC DOESN'T KEEP RESTRICTIVE PARAMETER IN MIND.
Person 2: FUCK YOU.
Person 1: NO, FUCK YOU.
Solaris and Linux are both incredibly different OS's. From their kernels to drivers to filesystems to hardware to libraries to applications, they're different. So why the fuck would you compare them? For some things Linux is king, and for some things Solaris is top of the hill. Some ask, will one usurp the other? But why would they affect each other if they're used for different tasks each with different strengths and weaknesses?
Stop arguing about pointless shit.
explains all the differences betweeen the various OSS licenses in plain English? I know how BSD differs from GPL; now I'm curious about things like Apache, APSL, Mozilla, IBM, so on and so forth, but I have neither the time nor the legal understanding to pick through the minutae of each of the licenses themselves. Thanks!
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
This article is useless. The author himself say he is "not not a technical expert". Yet he then goes on to compare Solaris and Linux on, you guessed it, technical merrits.
My crap'o'meter is ringing, ringing, ringing...
There is no mind share to keep. What will happen is what has always happened. UNIX religious wars, which became *NIX religious wars. Solaris will start to look like a very advanced stable and robust Linux distro to big business users and developers. SuSE will become Solaris's kid sister and fast tract to merge with Solaris x86.
Eventually Novell and SUN will merge and make an honest woman out of SuSE. 64 bit development will flood the market and AMD 64 and Ultrasparc cpus will start flooding the market. Intel and Redhat will start flooding the market with Intel 64 related stuff. And poor microserf will have to kick XP into the 64 bit world alot sooner the Ballmer's timetable plans for.
Suddenly all those over 35 years old coders will admit they used Solaris and can now still claim they are always Linux programmers. Solaris will at last get a decent user interface and CDE will be dropkicked back to what ever icy part of hell it came from.
Second Bubble here we come.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Just to clarify, the letters USR do not mean USER, sure it may sound plausible, but I assure you, USR actually stands for Unix System Resources. Think about it. For the historians in the house, remember, the first version of Unix wasn't multiuser. That didn't come about until it was ported to early C on the pdp-11.
Goto http://minnie.tuhs.org/PUPS/, the PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society, and get a simulator and the rk-ll disk images and actually run it. It's neat.
... is just what you want
I hate to put forth the same old complaint that the editors of slashdot are nuts, but why on earth was this story approved? I'm a long time (meaning 15 years) Solaris user, and I think Solaris is an excellent operating system. And I think open source might be a good move. And I think Linux still hasn't caught up with Solaris in most ways. And I've tried to switch myself to Linux, but gave up and still use my Solaris box (despite its being literally an order of magnitude slower than the new amd64 Linux box that was supposed to replace it) because Linux did not meet my expectations.
BUT, I also think there's no chance in hell that open-source Solaris will destroy Linux. I think this for a variety of reasons, but it doesn't matter exactly why because it's pretty obvious to me and I think obvious to others. So obvious, in fact, that serious debate is probably not going to happen.
So, why was this story posted? Whoever it is that wrote this article saying that Solaris will kill Linux is obviously a wacko. They are not the typical Solaris user AT ALL. As far as I can tell, the only real effect of this story will be to make the Slashdot readership think Solaris people might be a bit delusional. I'm not going to go all conspiracy theorist and say that this is intentional on the part of the Slashdot editors, but I will say it serves no real purpose to approve this story.
the important feature about Linux is the Linus Open Source Development Model. Unless Solaris gains this, they'll probably be third behind BSD in relevence on x86. If Solaris is inconpatable with GNU GPL, they won't have the brain trust to make it matter. If it's compatible with GNU GPL, Linux will leach out the good bits and move on.
The only other thing I thought when reading your opinion was wtf?, but someone else already posted that.
First, hardware control panels are not necessary when everything runs right. If you're having a problem, recompile your kernel, or upgrade.
Second, in opposition to the name there is certainly nothing standard about "linux standard base." The only distributions to follow LSB are Redhat mutants, and it's not a coincidense. Only redhat mutants are allowed by the LSB.
If you want to unify linux (and that might not be a good idea anyway) make sure you go with some true contributing resources. Redhat made things pretty clear that the only truth in LSB is base back at the start. Majority of input was to use debian's apt system for packages, but Redhat made their decisions totally apart from the community. Why should we even talk about making their project global after such a blatant slap in the face?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Will Sun kill Linux? Let me answer that for you:
bwahahahaha...
Sure, and next assembly will be the preferred choice of language for VB programmers...
Since then there been other OS'es wich tried to be open in one way or the other. In fact if you really look you will probably find more OS'es then computers.
Linux is more then just an opensource Unix clone. It got something. Don't ask me what. If I knew I would sell it to MS. Perhaps it is the GPL. Because of the GPL people can give code away yet not have others exploit their hardwork. Use yes but not exploit.
MS itself has tried to capatalize on linux with their shared source license with shall we say limited success?
Linux is not just open-source or the GPL or Linus Torvald or the bazaar or Unix. It is all this combined wich came together at the right time when the internet was ready to support it. I think it is no coincedence that Linux bloom goes hand in hand with the bloom of the internet.
And that is just the kernel. Good luck solaris on emulating KDE + Gnome + Enlightenment + XFCE4. Because that is something else linux (the OS/desktop) has. CHOICE. Pure sweet fucking free choice.
Solaris is just another OS wich tries to emulate the GPL software success. But until people really understand what makes Linux so loved they cannot even begin to emulate it.
Will solaris take over? Not until it can run a no-budget website on an old desktop dell plonked into a 2u box. Not until it can get the backing of an IBM NSA Chinese goverment.
Who would have thought 10 yrs ago that solaris would be the young hopefull trying to uproot the succesfull Linux. By the very fact that solaris went opensource they have admitted they couldn't cope.
Disclaimer I use the term opensource in a rather liberal meaning. Deal with it
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The premise behind this story is that Solaris is inately superior to the various brands of Linux around. It is not. Interestingly, the same is the case for many other commercial Unix distributions. Linux is very much a high quality, professional product. More so, the reason why Solaris is becoming free is precisely because it is Solaris which is already dead. They have discovered that they cannot compete with equally good, or superior, products that have greater hardware and application support and are cheaper to own and use.
You should really actually read what Sun is saying, rather than believe what people are saying that Sun is saying.
Let me say this clearly.
SUN HAS COMMITTED TO AN OSI COMPLIANT LICENSE.
I don't think there was anything ambiguous in that statement.
At no point has Sun stated that it is currently open source. It isn't yet.
Tp.
Having worked with unix for over 20 years I can assure you that originally /usr WAS short for user and that all user home directories were indeed in /usr. As a previous poster pointed out Unix shipped on two 1/2 inch tapes one was the root and the other one /usr with "userland" software. As Unix has grown over time user homedirs were moved to /home and /usr took a more general place and /usr was re-identified as an acronym for Unix System Resources.
And yet you are a fool - any manager will immediately choose anything that has a big brand and corporation name on it if both will cost 0.00$.
And even when commercial one will cost hundreds of thousands too.
Not that it's a bad thing - that linux shit should be isolated in deserted closet. Doing anything == doing nothing properly. Unfourtonately.
The main point is that Solaris is not meant for sick teenagers with programming ambitions and too much of free time (you know, the ones that visit R. M. Stallman when he runs around waving his hands and telling of the dreams he have), but real corporations that JustNeedSoftwareTheyCouldTrust, and preferrably for free at too.
So, open source or not, actually is irrevelant. What matters is free solaris, what will regain some serious grounds for SUN.
And not that this is a bad thing.
Solaris has wider support in the commercial arena, with applications like Oracle. Yes, some of them also support linux, but my (limited) experience is that IT managers are more comfortable signing off on Solaris than they are on linux.
That said, Linux has a smoother learning curve, especially in areas of system administration and setup. Add in a wide variety of distributions oriented to different users and applications, and you have the formula for an OS that will still be going strong years from now.
Sun is in a difficult place; it's lost much of the hardware market to Dell, HP, and IBM. Their attempt to "close" Solaris several years ago frustrated a lot of customers and sent them off to Windows NT/2000 or Linux.
My two cents, it's all good. Keeps Microsoft working hard to stay ahead on one front, and gives a lot of new development ideas and paths for the more technical user.
> no Solaris on a laptop/notebook/pda
But I'm typing this on my Acer Ferrari 3400 running amd64 Solaris 10, JDS and Mozilla. Looks like a laptop to me! And I'm watching movies w/ mplayer, listening to mp3s w/ xmms and in general really liking this...
- Bart
>If Linux could get 20% of the market, Solaris 20%, Apple 20%, M$ 20% and the variety of others taking the other 20% we would have a good, healthy market.
<rolls eyes> Yeah, I know *I* want to have to cross develop software packages for for 5-6 subtly different Unixes plus Windows, perform QA on them, and support them all. Should be trivial...not.
If monocultures are so awful, why not hate C/C++ for creating the same sort of language monoculture? Why not hate Intel for creating a x86 monoculture? It makes exactly as much sense, after all.
>The reason I hate M$ is because they think they know better than me what I want to do, I use Linux because it lets me do what I want.
Really? Bill comes by and tells you how to do things when you use Windows? Linus gives you a permission slip to do things your way? What are you, a dishrag?
When I use Linux, it's because it does something that I want it to and when I use Windows, it's because it does something else that I want it to. Only lifeless dorks "hate" and "love" OSes.
>It is not wrong for someone to make a different choice, it is wrong to try and remove those choices (as I believe M$ tries to do).
And you're going to help the downtrodden masses who "made a different choice" (that you don't like) by forcing additional choices (i.e. incompatibilities) upon them? <SARCASM>How incredibly generous of you.</SARCASM>
As much as we like to think of Microsoft as the borg, as far as OS's goe it isn't; Linux is.
If Sun really does open Solaris it's best features will be assimilated into the Linux borg and it will become marginalized.
Here is an explaination:
Solaris is just like Unix(tm)(r) but without powerful tools that are easy to use.
-L
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
Linux is not going to wane in popularity. Linux has already won and it is THE common platform of the future IT systems. Solaris and HP-UX will die in 10 years.
PROPRIETARY HARDWARE. (duh).
RTFA:
:
quote first line
"Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert." -- Thanks for that salivating rave so.
Move on, nothing to read here, but, delirous marketoid.
After reading most of the posts, I think we're missing the point here. The big plus in the *NIX world (Linux included) is diversity. No *NIX worth its money or effort put in by volunteers ever vanished. They all were killed by the marketing suits or PHBs.
Given the fact that a seasoned *NIX admin knows his/her way around on every *NIX-based box and taking into account the subtle differences, the answer is actually simple: use the right *NIX for the job at hand, don't do the WinDOS mantra "if all I got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail".
The "Zones" in Solaris 10 are a great way to partition a machine, for example. If I need something like it, I'll use Solaris. If I need to utilize an old machine, Linux or BSD is the OS of choice. When deciding about a new box, it depends what I want to do with it. It's really that simple.
From a security point of view, diversity is key. My Solaris box watches over the Linux machines and vice versa. Both flavors are controlled by a Mac. Should a break-in occur, good admins make sure the cracker has a hard time covering all the bases.
my 2 cents
And before they do something about the following situation:
then it's simply not Open Source at all. "Please pay us $99 to help us improve our product"? Come on...
I find it hard to accept what someone who can't distinguish between 'then' and 'than' says...
On a side note, this article does underline the major reason why IT executives with minimum or no technical knowledge are afraid to use Linux: There's no one to blame when things go wrong except themselves.
how the hell did you get this through the lameness filets?
Linux is not the same as x86..
http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/350/t tp://www.sgi.com/products/visualization/prism/
Here is some high end Linux solutions from SGI:
http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/
h
et's face it: Solaris has some nifty stuff. It's stable as all hell, it's got great multiprocessor support, a wide userbase, etc. There are, however, two huge strikes against it:
1) hardware, and
2) developers.
Yeah, people do develop for Solaris, but it's not the hot platform. Linux is. And what with Linux able to run on the new 64-bit x-86 stuff, the price differential on hardware is enormous for essentially the same system. And Linux has scalability down -- from uniprocessor machines, to large SMP, to large farms. Yes, Solaris can do all that, and frequently even do it a bit better, but when you put the figures on paper, it'll be darn few who decide to spend, literally, something like eight to ten times more money for essentially the same performance and a smidge more reliability. With the 2.6 kernel, Linux has truly matured, and is now a viable competitor for any Unix. And with its amazingly huge suite of both distributors and packages, there's no easy way to stop its momentum. "Oooh! Sun's gone Open Source!" Guess what -- that's all well and good, but it requires a community to embrace it to make that something that can be leveraged. I'm sure that there will, indeed, be such a community, but I'll be amazed if it garners even 10% of the development effort behind Linux -- and that doesn't even count the commercial money behind Linux, such as IBM and myriad embedded vendors.
Just as an example: I've got Solaris boxes on my engineers' desks. They're getting old. I'm going to replace them with Linux boxes that are every bit as fast as the Sparc III stuff Sun's got -- and for 1/3 the price. Why in the world would Solaris being open source make me change my mind?
Oh, but wait! Solaris can run on commodity hardware!
Well, that's great. Guess what? I *still* don't care. I've administered Linux, Solaris and HP/UX systems at companies both large and small, and by far the easiest to administer is Linux. From silly stuff like virtual consoles, to obscene ease-of-use for install, to live boot/recovery CDs such as Knoppix... everything about Linux is geared toward making a sysadmin's life easy. Sure -- most of these features can be done in one way or another with Solaris... but it's always an effort. "Oh, gee -- Sun's tar doesn't support that feature. Better go get GNU's." "Man, what I wouldn't give for a good GRUB prompt during this boot issue!" "Wow, did that Knoppix allow me to boot fast, and run fsck quickly." Etc.
If this had happened 10 years ago, Linux would never have gone anywhere. If it had happened five years ago, I imagine it would have been a tossup. Now? No way. Sun's either dead, or going to be a very, very different company, but there's no way it's going to win in a head-to-head with Linux.
Intel IA64:p rism/3 50/
/ power/i es/os/li nux/index.htmlv er/pseries/linux /index.html
e rs/prolian tdl585/index.html
http://www.sgi.com/products/visualization/
http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/
http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/
IBM POWER:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/enable/linux
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zser
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eser
AMD64:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/serv
Author looks like he is a "Male Gynaecologist" type
You are partially right. Having worked with unix for over 20 years I can assure you that originally /usr WAS short for user and that all user home directories were indeed in /usr. Unix originally shipped on two 1/2 inch tapes one was the root and the other one /usr with "userland" software. /home and /usr took a more general place and /usr has been officially re-identified as an acronym for Unix System Resources.
As Unix has grown over time user homedirs were moved to
I realize that this article won't get much review here other than, "Yeah, right!". But I think that's underrating what this persons thinking represents. From the perspective of stock investments he has a very good point for modding up Sun (SUNW, not SUN). What I am about to state herein is not my personal opinions, but the opinions that have been expressed to me by people who are shills, tools, and investors.
Sun has an established history and Name Recognition with corporations as being an Enterprise product with lots of Enterprise Support. The Name Recognition comes from decades of successful implimentation of Sun Servers in thousands of corporations. The fact that their recent performance has been less than stellar hasn't gone unnoticed. But companies are very slow to migrate their OS and if they can avoid it they'll save money. At least that's their thinking. They hate change and they hate risk.
Corporations hate any kind of change, unless they are the harbinger of that change.
The Enterprise Support that Sun has over RedHat comes in the flavor of really huge support contract houses like EDS. Much larger with a longer history than RedHat itself. EDS has proven itself mostly useful for most corporations throughout the last 15 years of history.
Generally speaking the fact that RedHat is Open Source or GPL or FOSS doesn't really mean anything to corporations. They spend millions of dollars on this stuff and if the price is too low, they'll assume that something is wrong, not that it's a cost savings. Would you buy a car for $500 that was labelled "new"?
Solaris 10 going Open Source might actually hurt them if they Corporate mindset is against Open Source as a doctrine. Where I work, they unilaterally reject anything that can be associated with GNU, GPL, FREE, Open Source and use that as a mechanism to reject many ideas. However they are also completely dependent upon Apache, Perl, Python. But it's OK. These are installed on Solaris Servers and are Supported by EDS. See, it's covered.
Where this guy misses the mark is the same area that SUNW messed up. They assume that by simply going Open Source you will have a active community over night. You have to build it. That's going to take a huge investment and a lot of non-corporate minded choices being made. I am sceptical that SUN can do this. I think there was an article where someone said, "See me in two years". I think that's about right.
I think the SUNW stock will lift short term because of pondits like this, then it will drop and then it will be two years from now...
Here's his list of reasons, and my comments on them (I'm a java and Oracle developer working on large UK projects)...
Why will the Open Source model automatically work? The majority of developers are already on Linux work and will have to be attracted to move across. Sun has had limited success in fostering support in the community so far.
Only applies to people already using Solaris. What about new deployments? I suggest that many SMBs will adopt Linux as (1) it'll work on a low-power machine and (2) their techies will suggest it!
Again, this only applies to people already using Solaris.
That's a serious judgement call there. Plus from what I read, this isn't necessarily true even if it 'should' be!
In short, I don't think this article was worth my time rebutting it. Oh...
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
I think many people ignore the fact that many (actually, nearly all but kernel) GPL apps can be compiled on Solaris.
If we assume that developer loyalty is with the applications they develop, and not OS, I do believe Sun's free OS will gain momentum, especially after they achieve binary compatibility with Linux.
Is there a need to pay for Red Hat Linux if you can run your Oracle on Solaris? It's a big question (for enterprises, of course).
I'll grant everything before the "and." We don't know what Sun's OSS model will look like. It certainly won't be the GPL, and I'll be amazingly surprised if it's even as liberal as the BSD licence. People aren't fond of giving away their code so that a corporation can make money off of it, so if Sun's model is anything like Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, it will stifle development by the community, not encourage it.
I'm not saying you are wrong... but you do know where the BSD people went to work ? What do you think SUN stands for ?
Do a google for Bill Joy, BSD Unix and Solaris.
MAC OSX is BSD, Solaris is the BSD boys...
"Unix 4: The Berkley Conspiracy" coming soon to a cinema near you.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This is my fault. Six months ago I wrote an email to Sun saying that if they freed Solaris it might gain developer support. (true story)
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
I think the biggest misconception out there on slashdot is that every machine is just another PC more or less, meaning a mainboard with just one PCI bus, a bunch of slots and an onboard ethernet and ide-controlled and one or two CPUs. A sun4m/sun4u desktop machine which propably most of the people here use to run Solaris at home is more or less like a standard PC (okay, so the sun4m has SBUS) and these machines are equally well supported both by Solaris and Linux.
However there is a vast difference between a Solaris/Linux box that sits on your desktop, and a Sun mid-range 6800 or even an Sun enterprise level E25K iron. These big highend machines are chock-full of redundancy and reliability features, interconnecting system components such as CPU boards (one board 1-8 CPUs & gigs of memory) and redundant i/o and network controllers over an also redundant backplane. The cool thing is that with these machines you can yank a (malfunctioning) CPU / IO / Network / whatever board and replace/upgrade it with a new one while the system is running. Not a second of downtime. However such features require kernel support. Solaris has that kind of support on Sun mid-range and enterprise machines. I doubt that most of you, me included, have a Sun Fire 6800 or even a Sun Fire E25K to play around with. If you're interested, this is what a big iron is like: Sun Fire E25K Hardware Manual
"Feature wise, simplicity, elegance and consistant.."
The OSX DE? come-on! for many it's impossibly complex. i offered it to my mother and she ditched it for KDE because "it made much more sense and anyway OSX is too noisy."
window management on OSX truly sucks, it's an RSI prone DE with more single button clicks than sense. like many, i broke up with Apple when they released OSX, formatted my G4 HDD and installed Debian. the move to a Unix-like OS was wise, but what benefit does it have over linux, especially with something free like Ubuntu around, a 40min 'Just Works' install on a G5 tower, with no buble-gum barking at me from the corner.
OSX's assumption that they have redefined the canon for useability and elegance is the very reason they continue to lose market share. the ocean is wide open for KDE/GNOME, at least their own users can influence design directions even if only on the basis of collated download stats.
gawk
But..
That makes no sense
The idea of a Grand Unified Control Panel involves configuring lots of stuff.
I don't confgure my kernel too often, I compile what I want, and then add some modules (DRM/DRI) and I'm done. The problem is that the systems that use a Linux kernel can be very heterogeneous, even without a display.
Maybe the idea of a registry database would be nice, and there could be implementations of as many frontends as you like, all working on the same database.
That way you can keep the look and feel of your distro, and not lose compatibility and configurability.
the idea of imposng a client side app on everybody, good or bad, just doesn't work.
the preview button is invisible on my screen.
But the problem I see with open source is that people that know what free software (FSF, GPL) is, differ in the definition of open source.
For me, typically, when I see someone call their software "open source", I tend to believe it's not free/GPL, because that's a common distinction.
Maybe the FSF could come up with another term, but anyway, once you tell someone that you talk about free software as in freedom, there's no confusion. With open source you get lots of different licenses with different restrictions. Free software is GPL, BSD, public domain, Apache.
They have freedom in common. Once you learn what free software is, there's no confusion.
Open source comprehends lots of licenses, restrictive or not, the only thing all of them have in common is that they show you the source and in general implement open technologies. Nothing about what I can do with that source. Even if I do understand what OSI stands for, Open Source means nothing to me.
Plus, BSD and GPL are both free software, from the point of view of the user. Copyleft goes further and takes away freedom from the middle-developer to give it to the end user. That doesn't make software less free. After all, everyone is a user, and just some of those users are developers.
Perhaps we don't need support contracts but managers who stand up for their own mistakes and don't blame them on their IT supplier. Remember: There is no "Computer Error", just human error at different parts of the chain. Most screwups are not the (sole) fault of the IT Equipment but mostly from a mix of problems in IT or another department which management should recognize early but fails to do so.
Linux is not Windows
Have you tried installing Solaris on x86 hardware? Good luck finding hardware that works. Maybe with an open-source version more drivers will be written, but right now Linux has the advantage on hardware compatibility over Solaris (and BSD).
Matthew 5:39
"But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Will open-source Solaris kill Linux?
Only if it's better. This article flames the OS-religion zealots and panders to the Microsoft vision. If Solaris releases a superior operating system with a superior license in an easy to use package why the hell wouldn't it kill Linux? The cool thing about most Linux users I know is that they use Linux because it's more stable, more compatible, cheaper, and decently easy to use compared to the other OSes on the market. Linux is the best choice operating system. They aren't using Linux because of some hard-wire neurological damage that forces them to see the world through Micros*cough* Linux colored glasses.
So yes, if Solaris is superior to Linux, is as freely licensed as Linux, is as easy to use as Linux and Linux can't keep up on these levels then sure, Solaris will kill Linux... if those are all true it *should* kill Linux. Until then, the competition between the two should improve both considerably and we'll still be stuck with legions of fools like the author that stick to Windows because "there can be only 1 OS and it's the one I know how to use."
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Despite what you may think, glibc IS linux. (hurd doesn't count)
Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
The linux kernel makes concessions to glibc, and vice-versa.
The linux PAM implementation is very linux-specific. NIS is userspace, but the implementation is tied to and implements parts of glibc, making it a linux-only thing.
These things are important to linux interoperability and managability. But the ideas came from Sun.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Yeah, nobody major is backing Linux. Who ever heard of "IBM"? C'mon! What does that even stand for?
Fucking troll.
Actually it stands for USSR cause of the dirty GNU/Linux commies.
Lets change things again. I like to break my users down by /users/services, /users/domains, and /users/home. This way I can easily create accounts for services and domains I'm hosting without the frequent ugliness that happens when those things are smushed into /home. I think /users/home needs a better name. /users/users seemed to sound funny. What'd be a better term for users who aren't special? /users/boring? ;)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
= 9J =
Why is is appropriate to think that solaris should run on a mobile phone or on
a media centre or in your car?
JavaME is there instead and it is much more
appropriate.
Use the right tool for the job, you won't go
wrong.
btw, I run Solaris Express on my aging
laptop. It runs just fine thanks -- for me, it
is the right tool for the job.
And for all these claims that Sun "doesn't get
it" -- wtf are you talking about? That the only
goodness in the software world springs forth
from the GPL? crawl back under your rock.
I'm glad you've got Solaris on your aging laptop. Bravo.
You miss the point: GNU/Linux is a popular uprising. It plays in a lot of places like a fresh hammer seeks everything as a nail. Some are, some aren't. Java wasn't dismissed; but the populist support for Linux doesn't drive Solaris, and it never has. And likely won't. Solaris works on two processor architectures. To move it to another would be pretty difficult, and subject to corporate whimsy. Linux has no such corporation but it does have whimsy.
Not all goodness springs forth from the GPL, MIT, BSD, or other licenses. It springs from dedicated and creative programmers, who are free to use whatever license they choose.
JavaME isn't the kernel; it's an application foundation layer. It's pretty useful; I have few criticisms of it. Instead, the point made was populism, and the energy that it's brought. Solaris doesn't have that wind in its sails, or in its sales.
And it's unlikely to get it. These are two different OSs with two different purposes. To claim that Solaris wins in ten years is hubris. To claim that Linux wins in ten years is hubris. It's the wrong question to ask.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Hi, I don't think so, Linux or FreeBSD, OpenBSD ... have his own spirit. Solaris opensourced is not bad but not the future we will see or badly waiting for.
Linux ppl are early adopters. A new shiny toy like Solaris will grab attention, and shift many dev's over to solaris especially in the short term. This could quite easily lead to dev stagnation for linux. I think whatever is the supperior product will win out in the end, as *nix ppl tend to be a lot less conformist than your average joe, otherwise they'd still be in win32 land. That being send, thjere will still be a number off pl clinging desperatly to their chosen OS in the face of evidence siteing the other as better. I could be wrong, but I'm not. :-)