Samsung Buys US Cloud Services Firm Joyent (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via VentureBeat: Samsung has announced Thursday that it has acquired Joyent, a company with public cloud infrastructure and private cloud software, to help beef-up its software and services around its smartphone business. While terms of the deal weren't disclosed, Samsung did say Joyent will continue to operate as a standalone company. "Until now, we lacked one thing. We lacked the scale required to compete effectively in the large, rapidly growing and fiercely competitive cloud computing market. Now, that changes," Joyent chief executive Scott Hammond wrote in a blog post. With Samsung's brand name and money to invest, Joyent may become more popular and challenge some of the top cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and the Google Cloud Platform. Joyent was the original steward of server-side JavaScript framework Node.js and helped to establish the Node.js Foundation in 2015.

Comments

The bubble bursts

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the lack of a dollar figure. Companies are running for the exits. Same thing happened in the last months of 1999 / the first few weeks of 2000. Joyent ran out of runway, having spent tons of VC money with no viable revenue to make the company float on its own. LinkedIn was bigger, but had the same perpetually money-losing business model.

Sun alumnis

[zdzichu]

Joyent is mainly known as a refugee for brilliant Sun engineers after Oracle takeover. They've built their platform around Solaris, ported linux' KVM to it and further enhanced using ZFS and DTrace.
The question is: will Samsung integrate those pearls? Or would this Solaris platform be shelved?

Re:Sun alumnis

[geek]

Or would this Solaris platform be shelved?

One can hope. Solaris is terrible.

Re:Sun alumnis

[brambus]

The question is: will Samsung integrate those pearls? Or would this Solaris platform be shelved?

Shelving the Illumos core of SmartOS (Joyent's cloud OS platform) would essentially completely destroy all value in Joyent. Its distinctive cloud technology is intimately tied to Zones.

Re:Sun alumnis

[BitZtream]

If Solaris is terrible I'm guessing you've never used anything other than Linux and don't actually realize how shitty your favorite OS is.

Just curious, what do you think is so awesome about your favorite OS that solaris didn't do first and did it better?

Re:Sun alumnis

[Anonymous Coward]

Systemd > SMF. Stupidly verbose XML is no way to run an init system.

Re:Sun alumnis

[jamesdwi]

yeah lets rip out decades of tried and tested code, and replace it with systemd that breaks many tenants of unix. and protect logging info by using a format that is more likely to get corrupted. Well its safe no one can read it, its corrupted. SMF didn't replace init, it just controls services in a more intelligent way that didn't break historic behavor. How often does a user have to deal with the XML files? almost never, and even developers are limited to just design phase, after that its not used.

Re:Sun alumnis

[armanox]

SMF is what systemd wishes it could be. If the GNU guys weren't so hellbent on it's GPL or nothing they could have even used SMF if they believe that they needed a more intelligent init system.

Re:Sun alumnis

[E-Lad]

You're missing an important distinction - SmartOS is based on illumos, which was forked years ago off of OpenSolaris when Oracle decided to shut that down.

SmartOS is thus illumos, and illumos and Oracle Solaris have diverged a good bit in the intervening years.

Nooooooo duh.js

[null etc.]

Oh, look, node.js is mentioned. Quick, let's start talking about how JavaScript is a terrible language.

Re:Nooooooo duh.js

[frank_adrian314159]

-1, Redundant.

Re:Nooooooo duh.js

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it looks like the part about Joyent Samsung cared the least for.

Checkmate, hipsters.

It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with ridiculing bad technology like JavaScript. In fact, it's something we should do as often as we can.

We don't even need to get into the numerous problems with JavaScript. They're obvious to anyone who has used any real programming language.

But when somebody says, "But JavaScript supports prototype OO!", we should tell that person to sit down and shut the fuck up. Prototype OO is a failure, and that's why we repeatedly see it used to replicate real class OO, but in a half-arsed way.

Or when somebody says, "But JavaScript is functional!", we should tell that person to sit down and shut the fuck up. JavaScript is not a functional language just because it supports lambda functions. Fuck, pretty much every language supports those these days.

Or when somebody says, "But JavaScript has a flexible type system!", we should tell that person to sit down and shut the fuck up. JavaScript doesn't have a "flexible" type system; its type system pretty much doesn't exist in any meaningful way! It's "flexible" only in that it's so utterly broken that it flops all over the place.

There is no place for JavaScript in the modern world. Web browsers should have supported other languages, or a generic bytecode format like NaCl (and not just that human-unfriendly JavaScript asm.js bullshit) years ago. There's no reason to use JavaScript for server-side programming, especially when there are so many alternatives and all of them are better. Even Perl is better than JavaScript on the server.

We shouldn't put up with the bullshit from people who support JavaScript. JavaScript has shown itself to be a disease on the computing industry, and it should be stamped out as quickly as we can stamp it out.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But when somebody says, "But JavaScript supports prototype OO!", we should tell that person to sit down and shut the fuck up. Prototype OO is a failure, and that's why we repeatedly see it used to replicate real class OO, but in a half-arsed way.

No, prototype OO is a failure because JavaScript failed to replicate the Self environment. (BTW, what's so great about "real class OO", unless you assume generalized predicate dispatch to help you fight ontological inadequacies of cast-in-stone assumptions of most commonly used languages?)

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[Anonymous Coward]

real class OO, the not the real feature loved by it's proponent. it's the type system that usually come with a rigid class hiarchy that they loved. A good type system should by orthogonal to the class system but frequently it's not....

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Rigid class hierarchies make no sense. In fact, hierarchies as such often make no sense. In fact, even in the absence of hierarchies, fixed classes for an object after its creation (assuming the object is mutable) are problematic at times.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[leptons]

Javascript is great, there are plenty of people that can see that - and you're a cranky old troll. Acting superior to others based on programming language preferences is a tired old thing to do. You may as well be huffing your own farts. While you're crying about how bad javscript is, millions of programmers are enjoying getting work done with it. Enjoy your obsolescence, neckbeard.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say "Rigid class hierarchies make no sense.", you actually mean "Class hierarchies make no sense to incompetent programmers."

First of all, class hierarchies aren't rigid. In fact, inheritance and polymorphism actually make them very flexible. But if you don't understand those concepts, then of course class hierarchies look "rigid" to you.

If you and programmers like you don't know how to use classes, inheritance, polymorphism, traits and the other features of real class OO, then it's a problem that lies solely with you. The rest of us know how to use these tools properly. They make sense to us.

Instead of crying about how stuff you apparently don't understand "makes no sense", try to learn about it. You'll quickly see, like the rest of us intelligent programmers have, that your prototype OO hacks are just that: hacks. They're also completely unnecessary for people who understand class OO.

Re: It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some mods should +5 Funny the parent. The quality is mediocre, but it's the best satire I've seen here lately.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

When you say "Rigid class hierarchies make no sense.", you actually mean "Class hierarchies make no sense to incompetent programmers."

I guess Gerald Sussman must be an incompetent programmer, then!

If you and programmers like you don't know how to use classes, inheritance, polymorphism, traits and the other features of real class OO, then it's a problem that lies solely with you. The rest of us know how to use these tools properly. They make sense to us.

Sounds like blub to me.

Instead of crying about how stuff you apparently don't understand "makes no sense", try to learn about it. You'll quickly see, like the rest of us intelligent programmers have, that your prototype OO hacks are just that: hacks. They're also completely unnecessary for people who understand class OO.

Fuck off.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to use a logical fallacy like Appeal to Authority, at least put some effort into it!

Scheme is a joke. Aside from emacs (which never saw much use in the first place), nobody uses it. Even academic institutions dropped Scheme long ago for real class OO languages like Java and Python in their introductory courses. Scheme is taught only as a lesson in later years so students learn how a programming language lacking real class OO is useless!

And if you're going to talk about nonsense like "blub" at least apply the term correct! It clearly is different from what we're talking about here, which is programmers who don't understand class OO.

Resorting to petty insults is uncalled for. If you don't understand class OO then maybe you should try to learn more about it, instead of attacking those who do understand it and who can use it effectively.

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

First, Scheme is irrelevant for the state of the world and the problems in it. Languages do not solve this problem (in fact, Scheme itself is woefully inadequate, despite being closer to solving many problems than most). Second, yes, for a programmer used to what you appear to call "class OO" (but clearly don't extend to its fullest possible extent, including for example CLOS/MOP), their language of choice is Blub because the inadequacies of it are not nearly as obvious (or obvious at all) to them as the inadequacies of, say, COBOL. Third, if you're going to suggest to me again to learn what I learned two decades ago (on Turbo Pascal 5.5, no less) and ultimately found wanting for the things I need to do, I'm definitely going to tell you to fuck off again.

(Also, hilariously, you seem to be espousing traits while ignoring (or simply being ignorant of) the fact that they come from your maligned prototype OO. Fascinating!)

Re:It's good to ridicule bad technology like JS.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Also, it is apparent that "real class OO" is your only hammer. In that case, I understand that all problems look like nail hierarchies to you! Being a one-trick pony is tough in today's world, though.

Joyent Noted...

[Anonymous Coward]

Joyent noted eves dropping spyware would be added to all cloud services at the demand of Samsung, which will harvest and sell data to the highest bidders.

a possible angle

[epine]

I wonder if Samsung just bought a private test facility for their unannounced 3D XPoint rival technology? Joyent has first rate infrastructure visibility behind the scenes.

I doubt this was the main driver, but it might have been a consideration.

Re:a possible angle

[epine]

A second thought just occurred to me.

If Samsung is a year or more behind on resistive memory, the short-term objective might be to pound the sand out of Intel's new 3D XPoint, so that they really know what they're up against.

Re:a possible angle

[cdrudge]

I know if I was looking for a cloud provider I'd just LOVE to have one that uses my business as a guinea pig to test their unproven technology. /sarcasm

There is no cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

There are just other people's servers.

Re:There is no cloud

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

There is no ocean, only drops of water.

Joyent’s customers include

[pteddy]

"Joyent’s customers include Nerve, Paper Culture, Quizlet, Storify, and Wanelo."

Who?

Re:Joyent’s customers include

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They are a third tier provider that has been shopping itself around because they were not going anywhere. Nobody other than themselves uses SmartOS (aka Illumos) even though it went open source 5 years ago. They are a bunch of ex-Sun engineers that have been playing with the dead carcass known as OpenSolaris.

Use same input validation on client and server

[tepples]

There's no reason to use JavaScript for server-side programming

If a web developer wants client-side prevalidation of input and server-side authoritative validation to use provably the same logic, what should he do?

• A. Write it in JavaScript
• B. Write it in another language that compiles to JavaScript
• C. Write an interpreter for the server-side language in JavaScript, as a workaround for the fact that what should have happened "years ago" ended up not happening
• D. Write it in both JavaScript and your preferred server-side language, thereby violating the DRY principle and the "provably the same" constraint
• E. Give up client-side prevalidation entirely and rely entirely on the server, thereby causing a poor user experience as a user completes an entire form before discovering that some field's value is invalid
• F. Give up the web and instead ship six native apps: one for macOS, one for iOS, one for Windows desktop, one for Windows UWP, one for GNU/Linux, and one for Android

Re:Use same input validation on client and server

[Anonymous Coward]

G. use a declarative approach to input validation, have the server side publish that information, have the front-end use this information.

Re:Use same input validation on client and server

[tepples]

G. use a declarative approach to input validation, have the server side publish that information, have the front-end use this information.

I'll take that as a special case of "C. Write an interpreter for the server-side language in JavaScript", where "the server-side language" happens to be a declarative language specialized for input validation. This in turn requires that the declarative language be rich enough to express the language of what is and isn't valid input in a given case. Are you referring to something on the scale of XML Schema Definition (XSD) or something simpler?

Any idea how much if any impact this has on node?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this impact node.js development, support or other aspects beyond what Samsung was already capable of? I'd really hate to see node.js go the way of MySQL (post-Sun-acquisition.)

Re:Any idea how much if any impact this has on nod

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to impact node harder than left-pad. Previously, node was a worthless piece of shit. In the future, node will be a worthless piece of Samsung(r) shit.

Re:Any idea how much if any impact this has on nod

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that lowly of node you must be a pretty crappy developer with either no experience or only experience in ancient technologies with a strong refusal to accept what you learned on 20 years ago is no longer the best thing around.

Re: Any idea how much if any impact this has on no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea because node is the end all be all to progamming. Everything is written in node, and if it's not, node hipsters rewrite it.

What would all those hackers do without node? I myself think node is the best programming language ever. I think it's better than JavaScript. :P /sarcasm

Re: Any idea how much if any impact this has on no

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point entirely. If you have to code multi-platform software (web, server, desktop, embedded - as in ALL of the above) node is amazing. If you stick to one platform you shouldn't even be calling yourself a programmer.

Re:Any idea how much if any impact this has on nod

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Node.js is apart of the Node.js Foundation which is a trademark of the Linux Foundation. Joyent has no more control than any other PR submission or board seat.

The only thing Joyent has is the trademark on "Node.js".

Re: Any idea how much if any impact this has on no

[Psicopatico]

640 platforms should be enough for anyone.

Backstory

[jean-guy69]

The following post from Bryan Cantrill is worth a read, if only to know more about Samsung's motivations for buying Joyent.

Samsung acquires Joyent: A CTO’s perspective