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Solaris 10 Released
AusG4 writes "Sun Microsystems has released Solaris 10 for both SPARC and Intel/Opteron. Downloading it is the usual 'register and get your free license' meandering; the Intel/Opteron version is 4 CDs and an optional language and companion disc (a bunch of pre-compiled GNU software in pkgadd format, I'm assuming, same as Solaris 8 and 9)."
Everyone around here keeps saying that Apple should get out of the PPC business and get into licensing OSX for the Intel x86 procs. They argue that selling the software is more lucrative than selling the hardware.
I think that Sun is providing us with a very good example of the opposite being true. Even though they literally give their product away for free, they still make money on their hardware. Apple would be fools to give up the high-margin hardware market and try to compete toe to toe with Microsoft Windows.
Trust RedHat? More than Sun. All of RedHat's products are published under the GPL. The license is Free, as in speech. I can even download the SRPMS if I wish, without paying them a dime.
Sure, I need to pay for support for each copy I run, but there's other distros out there that will run most anything RHEL does if they piss me off enough. Fedora is also a RedHat sponsored project, and for that they don't really care how many machines I, as an end user or developer, deploy. They appreciate the bug reports I send them though.
If the app I want is only certified on RedHat, it's a commercial app, and I might as well use Solaris if I'm going the proprietary route anyway.
Maybe I am being paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that Sun is "playing the OSS game" - they don't want to participate in the community, they're playing games to see how much of the OSS community's strength they can steal.
When will I trust them? When they either GPL Open Solaris or make it plain as plain can be that they will not use thier patents against any OSS developer - even RedHat.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous