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Torvalds on Opening Solaris
An anonymous reader sent in a link to this interview with Linus Torvalds, where the questions center on Sun's movement toward the open source world (and Linus' dismissive view of the threat posed by Solaris), as well as a few questions about 2.7 and the future of Linux.
From TFA:
When Sun releases Solaris as open-source software, will you take a peek?
Probably not. Not because of any animosity, but simply because I don't have the time or the interest. Linux has never been about "others," it's been about getting better than itself, so I don't really have any motivation to play around with Solaris.
Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that if that quote came from some executive at a Redmond-based company, the reactions would be outrageous. What ever happened to the concept of looking at your neighbours what they're doing better than you, instead of isolating your own development ?
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
That's just the perfect reply. If you've accomplished something great, don't be humble - that's fake - but state the facts and stay grounded.
What I don't understand is how this guy keeps himself grounded...
The owls are not what they seem
I wouldn't be suprised if Sun came out with a responce to this article. I mean Linus essentially just called thier operating system a joke. I wonder what kind of responce Sun will have to that.
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!
In my past life I was an SCO engineer (yeah hate me for it, but it was waaaay back)... and the more Linux evolved--disassociated from UNIX--the more I loved it. Posix/SUS was meant to be a basis for a manufacturer-neutral standard system interface. Linux kernel/gblic internals have been extraordinarily creative in working toward that rationale.
Sigs cause cancer.
Does anyone have a digitally signed copy of this article? How else can I trust this Tovald's guy with my computer?
I think Linus is being a bit too dismissive towards Solaris. Sure it's not going to completely crush Linux like McNealy wants to believe, but if it ends up being good enough it could slow down the growth of Linux and become a major competitor on x86.
is there something equivalent to NUMA or Grsecurity in solaris?
I have recently attended a talk at our local NOVA (Northern Virginia) LUG by Harry Foxwell focused on Solaris 10. And while Harry is a respected scientist and a great presenter, I couldn't help noticing some things that were not exactly in the Open Source spirit if you will. The talk was 90% about Solaris Containers (aka Zones or N1 Grid Containers), and being a believer of giving credit where credit is due, I was somewhat disheartened not to hear ony mention of FreeBSD jails and several statements about how Solaris Zones are primarily based not on any OSS work, but rather prior Sun work on Trusted Solaris. While I believe the Trusted Solaris stuff was partly true (in Linux this is called capabilities, BTW (POSIX 1003.1e/1003.2c)), it wouldn't hurt to briefly mention the origins of the concept of separation, FreeBSD jails, and the fact the Linux Vserver provides the same functionality for Linux (Linux Vserver was mentioned, followed by some condescending analogy of Linux and transformer robots and how Linux developers can "transform" Linux into supporting anything.) The truth of the matter is that FreeBSD jails appeared in 1999, Linux Vserver in September of 2001 and Solaris Zones in 2002. The talk could also use less of "Solaris is for real, Linux is not" comments, especially considering this is a talk at a Linux User Group.
The bottom line is - I salute Sun open sourcing Solaris, but they still need to work on improving the attitude towards other open source OS's, particularly Linux and FreeBSD. The strategy of insisting that Solaris is just better, isn't going to get Sun very far, simply because it isn't true in many respects.
I would recommend other Slashdot members to read this article, probably one of the best interviews I've had the pleasure of reading about Linus. The comments he made would benefit any open source project leader and stress once again that a successful open source project is one where "People need to feel involved...If anybody feels like somebody is just a passenger, that's bad for everybody." Other comments about incremental improvements and Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome are worth reading too. Don't let the title about Solaris confuse you, and its nice to know Linus didn't resort to mud slinging, which is very common from the Sun camp...
We received a Sun Blade 2500 running Solaris 9 with an NMR that our company bought. I thought it would be cool to learn some Solaris. I was very disappointed. The software seems to make no sense, the provided applications are old ( it comes with Netscape 4.7x as the only provided browser). I was surprised to have been so under whelmed. Sun seems to be SO conservative in regards to their software that they seem to be paralyzed. I fired up Netscape 4.7x to find some answers on questions I had about the OS and when I hit a site that used JAVA the browser told me that the version of Netscape I was running didn't support the version of JAVA the Webpage was using!! This is what came with a standard install of Solaris? I am much more comfortable with Linux and so understand I am a bit biased, but I just don't see SUN and Solaris being a threat to Linux unless they really put out a better product bundled with more current software.
"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wish I'd said that...
This attitude is perfectly fine for any Solaris release prior to 10. However, Sun has made massive strides both in performance and hardware support, especially on the AMD64 platform.
Furthermore, he completely dodged the questions about containers, DTrace, and ZFS. While these are all fancy names for things which are also available in Linux, the truth of the matter is the Linux counterparts cannot hold a candle to any of these features in Solaris. Here's a quick run down:
Containers: Solaris's new virtualization mechanism. Containers have a special kernel image which is able to communicate with the main system kernel entirely in kernel space. This is somewhat similar to the approach taken by the Xen virtual machine, except that Xen does it at a much lower level. Solaris containers may be thought of as somewhere between a Linux kernel instance running in Xen on top of another Linux kernel and BSD jails. It certainly is nothing like UML, where the UML kernel is running in process context and thus performs rather pathetically.
ZFS: This integrates all the features of a high end filesystem and high end volume manager into a single package. Unfortunately, this will only be available a few months after Solaris 10 General Availability, but once it hits expect tools like VxFS and the Veritas Volume Manager to be rendered thoroughly obsolete on the Solaris side. Linux certainly has many interesting filesystems with cool whiz-bang features, many of which aren't implemented in ZFS, but on the flip side ZFS has many features tuned towards the enterprise market which are seen in very few Linux filesystems, most notably XFS.
DTrace: While a bit obtuse for the time being, a simple demonstration of its power must be seen. The main advantage DTrace has over Linux alternatives such as KProbes, besides being massively more powerful, is that there is no performance impact on the system when they are not in use. DTrace probes are inserted into the kernel when needed and removed when not, whereas KProbes require they statically be built into the kernel.
Conclusion: There is a considerable amount of feature parity between Linux and Solaris 10, but the Solaris features all have an edge over the Linux ones. Linus should not let his hubris cloud his judgement... I expect Solaris 10 to be a major competator to Linux in the low end SMP server market.
Right now running Linux (or FreeBSD) on AMD64 has you flying by the seat of your pants a bit... it's certainly not polished and there are a number of caveats and gotchas to watch out for. Contrarily Solaris 10/AMD64, especially on Sun's own hardware, runs like a dream. I expect Solaris 10 to thoroughly decimate Linux in the Opteron server market.
There are still a number of areas where Linux is still playing catch up to Solaris as well, most notably in the realm of schedulers. While Linux 2.6 now sports a constant time scheduler like Solaris has had for a half decade, Solaris still supports modular schedulers which can be swapped in and out, can be active simultaneously, and processes can be moved between them. One of the most notable ones fo
This, and some replies here seem to act like Solaris enters the OSS world as an enemy that we can now more fully pick apart and find the flaws of to mock them. Kinda disheartening, if that's the angle people are going to take on it.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I love Linux.
But more specifically, I love Unix.
Solaris for those who have used it is simply more matured, and more hardened with years of development under its belt.
Linux is no joke, it may have changed the world.
But Solaris is where I'll be once it is set free.
Why does Solaris have to be seen as a "threat"? A threat to whom, exactly?
I don't understand. It still baffles me whenever this kind of mentality gurgles up, like when Jimmy Wales said that Britannica would be "crushed out of existence" as if that should be one of Wikipedia's goals. What, is Britannica somehow a net negative on the world?
Come on, get a grip.
Choice quote:
The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease.
I'm gonna remember that one and use it like a sledge hammer!
.
How can he like Newton so much when Newton was so mean and bitchy?
There's something way too messianic about Linus and I just can't put my finger on it. I don't know. He's inspired a beautiful thing and hordes of fanatical followers and he has not put a foot wrong anywhere - that seriously bothers me.
The owls are not what they seem
If you're basing your view of a Unix distribution on the availble GUI web browser, you really need to open the hood, baby.
expect that to come with the next version of Solaris, either bundled or to be added on seperatley.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
REDMOND, WASHINGTON: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated today that he has a rather dismal view of competing operating systems, Linux and Sun Microsystem's Solaris.
"If Torvalds is dismissive of Solaris, then I'm dismissive of Solaris and Linux. We're all emperors, of sorts, you know, it's just that we all have different styles of government," Mr. Gates said.
He continued, "My rule of Microsoft is oligarchical, obviously. I just work to prop up the share value enough so that the peasantry doesn't get uppity. I secretly have better things to do than play with my peons, if you know what I mean."
When pressed to further his analogy for Solaris and Linux, Mr. Gates stated, "Sun Microsystems is like Russia is now, or maybe China. They see that it's beneficial to appeal to...certain kinds of people in order to maintain solvency and growth. It's still autocratic at its root, but there is this illusion of free-market gallantry and an embrace of hitherto unembraced principles that appeals to certain kinds of people. Sort of like, 'do whatever you want, but we still own it and you.'"
Sun Microsystems is open-sourcing its Solaris operating system in a similar manner to Linux.
About Linux, Mr. Gates said, "Linux is like the United States with a small federal government that still retains enough power to break the whole thing up, but usually just stands back and helps the children play. Linux guides its adherents in a Jeffersonian grand experiment in freedom and it will be interesting to see if the ideological descendants continue to steer the ship in the same direction, so to speak."
When asked why he wanted to comment today, Gates said, "I personify my company, so, doesn't it make sense that I don't think too kindly of upstart Linux and grandma Solaris -- operating systems that are little more than pale blue dots in a galaxy of Windows?"
C'mon, of course Torvalds is a Solaris skeptic!:)
YOu dumbass n00b, you miss your little browsie wowsie???
Oh, too bad big mean Solaris don't have all the pretty buttons!
Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86. (Editors' note: Drivers enable an operating system to communicate with specific hardware such as a video card or network adapter.)
Oh really? I guess Linux was a joke for the longest time, then, considering its lack of hardware support. In fact, I guess it's still a joke compared to windows, if driver support is all that (apparently) matters. Why is Linus ripping on the new kind on the block for the exact problem his OS has had since its inception? This is disgusting hypocrisy.
He should be proud of what he's accomplished, and I'm grateful for his and other's work--but to take this snide attitude when another OS comes along, because it has some of the same problems his OS did originally, is pretty sad.
-Dan
The difference being, if Microsoft says it, it's company policy. If Linus says it, it's just one person.
Just because Linus doesn't look at Solaris, doesn't mean that no ideas would be transferred from Solaris to Linux.
You are forgetting as many do that Linux != Linus.
Linus shows one more time that he's an intelligent and well spoken individual. A good spokesperson for open source, that's for sure.
Anybody can imagine Ballmer or Gates giving honest answers like that to an interviewer?
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Homophobe.
You can relax now.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Disclaimer: I am against patents.
From the article:
Surely if you like the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, there might be some handy ideas in Solaris. Why ignore it?
Because I personally don't think they have anything left worth taking after I've applied the general Unix principles. I really do think Linux is the better system by now, in all the ways that matter.
But more importantly, if I'm wrong, that's OK. People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time. (emphasis mine)
In our patent driven world, isn't it dangerous to say such things? Since Linux was attacked with patent infrigement claims, Linus should be more careful about saying things which make the reader think about IP theft.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
"Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86."
I'm sure the comment will be taken all out of context...can't wait to see the mud slinging that ensues. Check Schwartz's blog/marketing tool for the comebacks in the next few days. Torvalds comments are mostly true for the non-server market, and Sun first and foremost is going after the server market with Solaris x86 although they are actively porting JDS to Solaris x86 which I think will run into problems that Linus mentions above.
To personally counter some of Mr. Torvalds other claims, historically Solaris x86 was a non-starter, but with a company like Sun pushing it now fully (especially on x86-64), it shouldn't be hard to find proper driver support for the majority of server installs from IBM, HP, Sun (of course), and Dell going forward. Where they're going to have to work hard is getting all the ISV's to port apps to another Unix with very small marketshare. Money always helps in that department and Sun is not shy about the fact that they have billions in the bank...so it could happen.
As for Linus' comments about Linux being superior to Solaris, I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps from a licensing perspective, and some aspect of the kernel might be as tight...but...
Solaris 10 has some neat features that don't fully exist in Linux or lack the polish that is found in Solaris.
Zones, fair share schedulers, zfs looks neat..., dtrace is amazing,
If Linux can polish up some the projects that do similar things as the above mentionned items than I think there isn't much reason to consider Solaris anymore.
The truth is defined as the reality for everyone. He is interested in promoting the reality of everyone instead of his reality, his needs, or his perspective. So the parent is making a restatement of Kant's Categorical Imperative.
I think that's fairly high-up on the philosophy food-chain, even if you don't agree with all of Kant's ideas.
FORTUNE FAVORS IRONY
I think that a lot of commentators have misunderstood Linus' answers. When Linus blandly said that he's not even going to bother studying Solaris/x86 in detail, he meant that he's not a Solaris expert. The Linux development model, by its very nature, means that any new technology of sufficient value would be easily incorporated in Linux. Linus simply meant that because he has created a dynamic atmosphere that encourages the adoption of ideas, he really doesn't need to inspect a competitive OS with a fine-toothed comb himself. If Solaris 10 does have features that get widely adopted by it's customers and proves itself over time, it would be a trivial issue to incorporate the feature in Linux (if it makes sense).
He's not dismissive of Solaris; he simply has a lot of confidence in his development model.
IMHO, of course.
My copy of the article came signed with all these checksums from somebody with the initials "TCP", didn't yours?
Really? How is that? I didn't say anything remotely anti-gay. Oh I get it!!! YHBT. YHL. HAND! ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Calling Solaris a joke re: hardware/driver support is a bit unfair. Releasing it as an OS project should help tremendously, with the enormous community of developers already in existence.
NAAAAH!! Nobody wants to write device drivers.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I want gblic++
Linus seems to use a lot of cliches.
It's not a bad thing, but you can talk cliches till the cows come home....
Sorry, folks. I'm here all week.
What is so great about him is that he just doesn't give a crap what you think about him.
He uses "sucks", "hell" and generally says what he feels and isnt stuck up with all that courtesy bullshit other important people do.
Imgaine if Linus was in a boardroom meeting where they were trying to buy the Linux Kernel. Now imagine the string of expletives coming out of his mouth.
He kicks so much ass because he just doesn't give a shit if he conforms to the "correct" image that the media likes.
man, Linus's arrogance is quite outstanding.
He has the nerve to write off software that has been around for decades and say he isnt interested?
Youd think someone so concerned with the future of Linux would love to pour over the Solaris code and see what mistakes they've made and where he can improve. Its shocking to see him just toss all that experience aside as "a joke"
this kind of attitude is what makes me avoid Open source alltogether, nobody is willing to work with each other, its all one big pissing contest.
http://www.pyroweb.us
Taggart: Mount up, men! We'll head 'em off at the pass.
Lamarr: 'Head them off at the pass?' I hate that cliche. (He fires his pistol into Taggart's left foot)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Read the whole freaking article.
remove all the existing code, and replace it with Linux...and we will call it SOLARIS 11.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It all comes down to your software needs. I have to run SCO OpenServer 5.04e on a box because that is all the software vendor will support me with. I have to have Solaris 8 running on a SparcStation for the same reason. I have to run Windows to play the latest game (I wouldn't know, but you get the idea).
The point is, I run Linux where it makes sense (notice I did not say I run it where I can). If the ABC operating system makes better sense than Linux for my specific application, or I am otherwised forced, I am running ABC. No different with programming languages. If I can whip out some mega code with MentorProDB or DataFlex, why spend 10x the effort to code in C? If I must code in Perl because the existing development on a project is in that language, I don't start coding in Ruby or Python.
I am anxious to see Sun make a comeback in the systems market, and think this is a bright move for them. I have been less than pleased with my past run-ins with Solaris/86, and am ready to give it another look.
Click here or here.
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copper spike driven through his left foot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You don't address the point that Newton thought and acted as a bitch.
Rather, you use bold type followed by "but I think" followed by any random string.
And then your sig is a bitches sig.
Wouldn't those be idioms?
From TFA:
It seems to me that they have taken some action besides just grandstanding. They have resurrected the x86 version and added several interesting features--containers, DTrace, and ZFS, for example--that are available today in beta versions of Solaris 10.
Did I miss something ? I thought that ZFS wasn't available in the beta stuff yet ?
Sun are in a hole. At the moment, they're writing to their enterprise customers asking that they (their customers) contact their ISV's and request software for Solaris x86. This is a bloody dangerous thing to do and could cost a lot of people in a lot of companies their jobs in the medium term.
Think about it - 10 of your customers (and you only have 20 or 30) phone and ask for your app on Solaris x86. They may be doing this because they genuinely want it, or more likely because they want to keep in Sun's good books and use this favour for improved discounts down the road. So you hire some new developers, move some existing developers from your Linux / Solaris on SPARC port and get going on the x86 port. You bring it to market and NO-ONE buys! So you lay off the extra people you hired, you lay off a couple more people because your profits are in the shitter because of the development commitment you made, and you hire off some more people just because redundancies always spawn more redundancies. And all this because Sun are trying to make a grassroots movement where there isn't one!
> Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard.
Last I heard? Come on Linus, please don't let what could be a healthy discussion degenerate into childish name calling. Such comments are usually the preserve of those that don't have anything constructive to add.
You will Oscar, you will.
Linus is doing the same thing Prof.Andrew Tanenbaum did years ago when he said "Linux is Obsolete".
Hypocrite
e
n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Hypocrit
Hypocrites are actors... The term came from Greek theater. Not kettles calling pots black... If Linus was a Hypocrite he would secretly own stock in Microsoft and chairboard meetings about how to ruin FOSS behind everyone's back while proclaiming his love for FOSS to the public.
Oh the love of god! He is being the pot calling kettle black but is not... I repeat... An actor.
given he's apparently paid all the Solaris trolls to come out of the woodwork and diss Linus for a one-paragraph comment.
Sun is history. Period. Forget about them.
If they had been smart five years ago, they (and HP and IBM) would have ditched their proprietary Unix platforms and handed over the enterprise features to Linux (like SGI did with their file system) and concentrate on adding value with system management tools. They would have had a prayer of competing with Microsoft then.
Now, they're going to end up doing that anyway - after they've lost to Microsoft and Linux.
I have no sympathy for Solaris users. You backed the wrong horse. Tough. Deal with it.
In ten years, the only people running any other Unix OS except Linux will be the same sort of people who still run IBM System/3 minicomputers.
In other words, morons.
Linus is right. He doesn't have to care about Solaris - he's going to get all of Solaris's useful features in Linux sooner or later anyway - one way or the other.
Like the saying goes, "If you aren't part of the steamroller, you're part of the road." Or as Linus quipped about Gates' book, "Anybody standing in the road looks like roadkill to me."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"To invent something totally new and different just because you want to do something new and different is in my opinion, the height of stupidity and hubris." If this is not a example of arrogance than I don't know what it is. It allmost sounds like a Bill Gates statement.
Daemontools is over 4 years old...
Just because it (or some other approach) wasn't accepted by some distro does not mean you couldn't have it. They just don't want to break compability....
AC
Sun doing well with Solaris helps Linux in many ways. Thanks to both supporting many of the same APIs, apps are reasonably portable between the two operating systems. In particular, Novell, Red Hat and Sun are all pushing GNOME and OpenOffice, not to mention (shameless plug) Helix. So, regardless of whether Linux or Solaris wins, a lot of end users really benefit with more open source applications.
Rob
wtf?
they explain, what a driver is, but not what "containers, DTrace, and ZFS" are...very strange, even that they explain the concept of drivers - i mean, WHO would read an interview with linus, if not tech-savy-ppl? o_O
The linux kernel has come a long long way in recent years. But when your running Linux on servers with more than 4 processors There is where you start to see issues. While running Solaris or Tru64, etc on 4 way systems or 8, 16 32 64 etc no problems at all. That is where Solaris has its stake and nobody can take that away from Solaris or any of the True Unix operating systems. With all the bitching etc about the differences both Operating systems have thier place and both are very powerful. IF sun release the Solaris OS will they also provide the compiler?? That would automatically improve suns image rather than being a dodgy rip off.
They talk about containers, DTrace, and ZFS in one breath, and then insert and editors note explaining what drivers are in the next.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Linux was the first OS to run AMD 64 back in the 2000 year when hardware was not available and Andrea Arcangeli did it in a emulator.
AMD 64 support in Solaris is very weak. Until solaris 10 (a montha go?) there was NO stable 64-bit solaris version. Sun, the "big IT company" which had been running 64 bits computers for...a decade? didn't have a 64 bit version for the amd-64. Only the 32 bits one.
And if you visit blogs.sun.com, amd64 in solaris started to boot like 6 months ago. Linux and FreeBSD beat Solaris in AMD 64 support.
BTW, can I switch IO schedulers on-the-fly in solaris? Can I assign a process "IO priorities" like in Irix? Linux 2.6 certainly can...
Windows directly depends on 3rd party hardware manufacturers. That in fact hurts them A LOT
They've to keep old kernel interfaces and crappy compatibility layers because they don't have the source.
Linux however has the source of most of the hardware. I don't think many people realize how much advantages has linux because of that. It allows linux to evolve *anywhere* without waiting for 3rd party hardware manufacturers to catch up. It allows, in fact, to ignore binary compatibility, which is what Linus has been doing for a while in 2.6 - he don't care about binary compatibility because all the open source drivers are already fixed.
I am not sure, but I think VMWare 4.5.2 and 5 beta have experimental support for Solaris 10b
So what?
Solaris still will not support my webcam, wlan card, bluethooth dongle.
"Enterprise" (what A bullshit word) features are for a very marginal set of users. And instead of joining every other vendor except microsoft to develop more features for Linux, Sun chose to keep adding features to it's own OS. Chances are, that "Enterprise" customers will find GFS clustering filesystem and Stateless Linux more usefull than a new kernel debugging feature.
But cool, keep the NeWS and OpenWindows sprit alive - It's not like Unix where already once almost killed by fragmentation. We need a shitload more unity not to get absorbed by Windows...
The thing that always bothered me about Microsoft was that it is always at War with it's competitors.... with Borland or Netscape or Wordperfect... not satisfied to make good products that have healthy sales, but a need to defeat and run out of business any competition.
When I see these Solaris vs Linux articles, I sort of feel that the Linux crowd is doing the same thing. Not enough to compete with Windows, you've got to take on everyone, even fellow Unixes.
The subject is Linux and Solaris, why installing them on the same machine is offtopic?
I've been a UNIX admin for just 8 years but I fail to see much of a difference between 99.9 and 99.1.
If I know that my servers will not be rebooted until
I have been at my next job for 3 1/2 years what do I care? I've seen Red Hat Linux run on old dell hardware with out failure,(hardware or software) for 4 years. With the contrast of the MS crap the other admins are supporting am I wrong in realizing that I'm the only one noticing. Management doesn't notice. They still pay for new windows servers regularly.
Solaris is rock solid and reliable. So what? So is AIX, HP-UX, and LINUX. What has sun done for me lately? IBM has produced new technology that lets me run all my apps on 1/2 of the processors costing me that much less for Oracle licensing. The same hardware lets me run Linux, AIX, OS390, or Windows (not that I would run windows for anything) but management likes to hear that I can. With Sun I'm just a passenger. I don't have a clue what their new direction is doing for me.
It is still true today.
I have built Solaris based hosting infrastructures for a very big entertainment company. And the machines/OS are the very best.
But the cost was astronomical.
I believe that I could have done as well with a cluster of Linux boxes for 1/100th the cost.
I love Sun/Solaris..
I can afford Linux.
Installing them on the same machine is a war crime.
He is a hypocrite, pretending to be an advancer of open source, when really he is just trying to advance his particular breed of open source. I'm well aware of the meaning of hypocrite. Personally, I like the following from m-w.com:
a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
Linus acts like he's a champion of open-source, but he mocks other open-source projects. It sort of seems he's only interested in his own fame, nowadays.
-Dan
I *hate* the privative or propietary licences from Sun's Slowaris.
SUN will be the NEXT SCO
"[The] attitude (that Solaris has 'very little support for any kind of strange hardware') is perfectly fine for any Solaris release prior to 10."
considering that solaris 10 isn't even released yet - it's still in beta - i'd say that that attitude is perfectly valid. after solaris 10 is released, then we can talk.
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
For Torvalds, it's too hard to decide. Though the both are open source system, even the two are both some kind of UNIX, what everyone loves most is his/her own child, isn't it? The Torvalds' original intention is to develop a free desktop OS that can run on cheap x86 boxes as a replacement of MS Windows, "My target is Windows", he said, and hoped that Linux can always focus on the desktop area. But things change so fast, as more and more companies involved in, Linux is eventually completely out of Torvarlds personal control. The market is cruel, especial in desktop OS area, the giant Microsoft have never given his enemy any opportunity to breathe. As a pioneer, RedHat was impressed deeply, facing the bloody facts, it finally gave up the ambition in the desktop area at 2003, and turned to the server side, where was traditional realm of SUN. comparing to Microsoft, SUN is obvious a gentlemen, his warm attitude to his opponents has brought so many troubles to himeself.
-- forgive me my poor Engl...
Ignoring all the heat (as opposed to light) regarding Linus' remarks about Solaris, a more interesting point seems to be raised in the article that is not being addressed in this thread. If Sun does release Solaris as open-source software, perhaps as GLP; so as to take advantage of opportunities for increased hardware driver support and cross-fertilization with Linux, what will the OS community look-like/become with two potentially competing and/or two potential synergistic OS's out there?
What will be the impact of Linux on Solaris or visa versa?
How will this change computing?
Personally, I write mostly in Java, so I would think this relatively portable environment could benefit greatly from the mix. IMHO this would be good both for the oss community as well as for the Sun community.
Of course, inertia will greatly affect debate and future development, whether pro-Linux or pro-Solaris. Zealots will always be with us, but have never really been able to prevent progress (although they are good at creating costly detours), so their presence is really only a side show.
The main event - what will the future bring should an oss Solaris emerge?
Speaking as a SUNW investor (but Linux user), I hope Sun is able to adapt its business model (and wend its way through the legal minefield) to follow through on opening Solaris as oss code.
Development of yet another healthy oss OS would be a positive development for open-source and add increasing pressure on more proprietary vendors (such as M$), thereby increasing the power of users/public generally.
This URL might help
t .h tml
http://www.sun.com/software/linux/docs/dual_boo
http://www.sun.com/2004-0803/feature/
Creating a zone that runs a linux app under a single Solaris OS image has advantages for management and security. And, with little overhead performance won't be an obstacle.
Is it me or this is a bad intro for Linus? I find this a little septic or cinic. It could have made a reference to this story or something more worthy. But maybe that is too much for news.com.com.com.com. ;)
Thank for illustrating that the vast majority of your posts are really pointless drivel. Think about it.
***** He is a hypocrite, pretending to be an advancer of open source, when really he is just trying to advance his particular breed of open source.*****
Everyone else but Linus himself has said that he's "advancer of open source". It's in your mind that you have made such a assumption. So no hypocracy here.
+
I still think Linus is a bit slick for a finn.
rsync://math.uwb.edu.pl/multiboot
BSD is dying because it isn't digitally signed.
Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
So I'm reading the article and I run across this in one of the questions:
"They have resurrected the x86 version and added several interesting features--containers, DTrace, and ZFS, for example..."
Followed by this:
"If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86. (Editors' note: Drivers enable an operating system to communicate with specific hardware such as a video card or network adapter.)"
Now... can someone explain to me why the editors figure that people who have some idea of what x86, DTrace, containers and ZFS are wouldn't know what a driver is?
i know this is thoroughly off-topic, so mod me down if you wish, but how else am i supposed to reply to a sig?
instead of the biased ranting? Linux probably does 95% of what Solaris does just as good, but without some objective, feature by feature (or possibly, benchmark by benchmark - hopefully this wont invite flaming :) comparison and how exactly one falters when compared to the other, would be most helpful... Back to Linus' point - we need an expert on Solaris and an expert on Linux architecture to give us major strong points of either..
:).
I'll bet you (short of the driver support in solaris), there's probably minimal differences in how both work
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels