Scott McNealy's thoughts on Linux

profesor writes "Scott McNealy had some interesting comments on Linux at the dedication of Sun's new campus in Massachusetts. " Well interesting, assuming the comment "a great way to get to the wrong answer" is interesting. Scott's keeping his cool on this one, and doesn't want to be seen like a certain someone else.

Comments

Sun Microsystems: A friend, but not an ally?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the previous "out of context" complaint. But the position of Sun towards Linux seems to be a bit more clear in my view. After the HP announcement, I went to my Sun sales rep with what HP was doing w/training, and asked if Sun was going to offer Linux training.

My request was forwarded, and they seemed a little surprised at my request, but recommended finding a course at a local college. Doesn't seem like a coordinated response to Linux, positive or negative.

It looks like that, at the current time, Sun is sitting on the sidelines with Linux. It isn't going to be any real revenue earner for them. And, it isn't going eat a sizeable chunk of their revenues either. Most people who are into Linux aren't going to be the type to spring for an Ultra 10 workstation, not to mention a Ultra Enterprise 4000 server. Linux will never have a home on the E10000 "Starfire" machine. (Companies just aren't spending $1+ million on hardware to run an operating system that won't exploit it.)

But Sun seems to have more reason to weakly embrace Linux than to repulse it. (Especially because of the Microsoft factor.) Keep in mind that you can't judge the actions of Sun by what comes out of McNealy's mouth. Also be aware that he's more focused on the big servers and tiny java devices. Middle-of-the-road-devices don't interest him. (Somewhat odd for a company that started with workstations.)

Sun is a friend of Linux, but not a strong ally. They have no reason to be.

Re:Sun Microsystems: A friend, but not an ally?

[arieh]

If not a friend, how would one qualify being a member of Linux International - certainly before SGI or HP.

What about the help given to do the JDK 1.2 port to Linux ?

What about the hardware lent to the linux sparc port ?

The reason why HP (don't know about SGI) offer Linux courses is because they want to sell their Intel boxes, certainly not for their PA-RISC, MIPS processors. In that context, Sun sells no Intel-based hardware. That is my explanation why linux instruction is not offered by Sun.

My conclusion: yes a friend and an ally.

--
I work for Sun. But my opinions are mine.

If SMP is the criteria... Solaris wins.

[Codifex Maximus]

Though if sheer processing power for the buck were to be factored in, then Linux comes out on top.

Example: If you want a small workgroup server, Linux can give you a solid system at minimal cost.

Example: If you want a workstation, Linux can offer a very competitive environment complete with SMP, Networking, 3D Graphics, Standards Compliance, and Portability.

Example: If you want to perform calculations, a Beowulf cluster of Linux boxes can give wonderful results for a modest investment. I believe a Beowulf could be constructed that could beat an E10000 in raw calculating power for a fraction of the cost. For that matter... I believe that it is possible to build a cluster of E10000's using Beowulf technology that could beat just about anything on the planet - it'd be expensive though... :)

Like I've said before, Solaris and all the other commercial Unix's are a wonderful thing! They are very mature and stable but they by no means provide the greatest value to the greatest number of customers.

If I was going to run a bank or a hospital server that attended to mission critical services, I'd choose a commercial UNIX (not that Linux wouldn't do the job but because of current high-end scalablitiy issues). But, for the subsidiary systems like workstations, terminals, and research tools, I'd use Linux.

The point here is... with enough money, you can build the fastest computer in the world. Linux just brings the power of UNIX within the reach of the average person. Good for UNIX no matter how you look at it!

worthless...

[pb]

Everything he said was taken out of context. That doesn't mean that it's false, but I for one would love to know what he meant by "a great way to get to the wrong answer"...

Assuming that the right answer is Sun's Slowlaris? Maybe for multiprocessor boxes, but definitely not for the price...

Anyone have any more info on this?

Re:worthless...

[ASICS]

What he was saying was that his vision is for
Big Iron (Sun) servers, and ultra-thin clients.

I was there during the speech and the Q/A session.

And, Yes, most everything *was* taken out of context.

Re:worthless...

[oldmanmtn]

Everything he said was taken out of context. That doesn't mean that it's false, but I for one would love to know what he meant by "a great way to get to the wrong answer"...

Actually, he said that Linux was "the right way to get the wrong answer". He meant that supporting open interfaces was absolutely the Right Thing to do. He was less convinced about open implementation, but he was at least warm to the idea.

By the "wrong answer" he meant that the Linux mindset is to have fat, powerful clients. He believes that the right model is to have fat, powerful servers, and thin clients.

Several times he made analogies to the phone system. Your phone is a thin client, connecting to fat servers. You don't buy software for your phone, the phone company supplies features. Etcetera.

Most of it wouldn't apply to the way your average /. reader uses computers, but it does make sense when you start thinking about the throngs of less sophisticated users out there.

How do you make the internet accessible to those people who can't program their VCRs? Asking them to install and configure Windows or Linux isn't going to cut it. For those people, a WebTV-like solution probably makes sense.

If you have a thousand people in an insurance company doing little but data entry and retrieval, does it really make sense to put a full powered PC or workstation on each desk? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and more manageable to have some thin, stupid clients communicating with the fat servers in the back room.

Assuming that the right answer is Sun's Slowlaris? Maybe for multiprocessor boxes, but definitely not for the price.

The price? Solaris 7 was available for just the cost of the media. I don't know if that's still true or not.

Explanation of "Right way to do the wrong Answer"

[ChrisRijk]

Some time ago I submitted a load of links to Slashdot, but they didn't get published. Here they are:

• While Linux will pose more of a threat in the long-term, currently it's helping Sun. Here's some recent Sun-related links - Sun does well according to
• IDC server survey. Sun's sha re price has risen from $20 to $70 in last 6 months. Sun is now selling the Samba-like NetLink (part of Project Cascade). Interview with Scott McNealy (Sun CEO) at The Register, parts one, two, three and four - "the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so I love Linux.". A SunWorld (not part of Sun) article about the "unoperating system" - Oracle (and Sun's) plans for 'thin-server' appliances with a small OS.

There's also a more recent article at SunWorld about Linux on SPARC.

Here's the bit about Linux from the article at The Register:

• "Linux is like Windows: it's too fat for the client, for the appliance ...it's not scalable for the server. It's the right way to do the wrong answer, so if you're going to do the wrong answer which is fat clients and thin servers, then at least do it with Linux.

• "Don't send any money to Microsoft for something that's fatter, slower, buggier, doesn't scale as well, and has fewer people working on it.

  "There was an interesting little experiment our CTO [Bill Joy] did. He took the Sony Vaio notebook ... He downloaded Linux, then he went over to Netscape and downloaded the latest version, and then he went over to Star Office, and all of a sudden he had a better, faster, smaller, lower-powered, bug-free, legally free environment ... with more people working on it than the entire state of Washington.

  "Now why in the world would anybody ever write another cheque to Microsoft? I don't know. But why would you do Linux either? That's the wrong answer. Go thin clients, go appliances: that's the right way to go long term. So that's why I call [Linux] the right way to do the wrong answer. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so I love Linux."

Okay, some comments on this. If you include all the GNU/XFree86 as being part of Linux then it becomes pretty damn big. XFree86 is something like 45 million lines of code, last I heard. So 'all' of GNU/Linux is about 60 million, perhaps. Solaris is about 10 million. However, Scott's take on the future is basically the network computer concept. However, the markets he's thinking of are a) corporate, b) embedded consumer systems (TVs, set-top-boxes, intelligent phones etc) and not geeks. So, you have 'big iron' servers in the background giving you extreeme reliability - as reliable as phones, and incidentaly about 20% of Sun's revenue comes from telcos. These manage the 'master records' of your files, data etc. You then have 'simple' local clients that can do their own processing and have access to your 'big iron' servers.

As an example, just recently, Sun announced their 'i-Planet' software, which is very cute - all you need is 'client' computers with Java running on it, and some servers in the background, with both connected to the internet. Now, what you do is from anywhere on these client computers you 'login' to the server, which then sends you some Java programs so that you can securely manage/access your email and other things. Basically, you don't need a 'personal' computer anymore.

Scott's "right way to do wrong answer" is kinda misleading. But you can look at it like this, a) he thinks Linux is 'good' for what it is supposed to do, b) he thinks that (currently) Linux is not a general solution to the various problems that need to be solved in computing - ie it solves a sub-set. Scott's general 'solution' is for big (Sun) servers in the background with 'thin clients' being used the the public/workforce running Java - the hardware/OS doesn't even have to be from Sun.

Is he right? Well, I think that for many situations I think 'thin client' 'network computing' is a good way to do many things, but it's not really for hacker types. How well the implimentation works will depend on the software, which is why NCs didn't take off - the software wasn't ready.

Sorry this isn't very well written...

Why are we wasting our time on this?

[Bruce Perens]

We went through this when Bill Gates dissed Linux, too. Folks, when the representative of a company that makes its money on product "A" says that competing product "B" is no big deal, that's to be expected, and ignored. What else would he say?

Here's a more important news story. Read this press release and see if you can help the W3C by finding prior art to overturn a patent.

Thanks

Bruce

Can we detect a bit of a bias here?

[Kaa]

Linux is a direct competitor to Solaris. Naturally McNealy is unhappy about the world domination plans, and he expresses it just a bit more graciously than that unnamed individual.

Again, just because Sun is not MS does not mean it wears a white hat. Sun would be quite happy to squash Linux and have Solaris running on all Unix boxes out there. It is less successful at this than Microsoft with PCs, but it surely wants this to happen.

I would be quite suspicious of Sun. Given their recent Java moves ("this language belongs to US!"), the famous McNealy privacy remark ("Get over it"), and other signs, I'm detecting a certain darkening of their headware.

Kaa

Linux on Sparc

[lameland]

Unlike other Unix players such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM, Sun, in Palo Alto, Calif., has unveiled no plans to support Linux on its hardware.

Untrue. Sun has decided not to ship linux with it's hardware,
but is supporting linux on Sparc and UltraSparc. Check out:
http://www.sun.com/software/linux

Creator3D anyone?

[x3d]

There seems to be a lot of rug beating going on here. People who use single or even dual cpu x86 machines but have never sat down in front of an ultra may not be aware of some of the issues re linux. When I first came to work my company was dominated by x86 solaris. I brought linux and bought the portland group compilers (for a fraction of suns workshop fees) and blew away the solaris x86 machines. Boot in a small fraction of the time, comile quicker, better uptime, better memory handling, etc etc and best of all customize, customize, customize. BTW CDE sucks. I tried hard to get them to switch to linux but no go. Too much legacy code linked against libs you cant get for linux (binary only dists from INT- Interactive Network Tech. for example). So they still use the x86 slowlaris. However! I am sitting in front of a twin ultra60 with 400s and a Gig of ram. What makes it really sweet is the creator3D graphics (and the dual heads). Find a linux driver for that, or show me double-buffered hardware accelerated 3D graphics on linux. I use geomview and do a lot of 3D work. On linux it is merely passable, because you must use software rendering. But on this ultra, baby, it simply flies. Until linux gets caught up at that end (and I dont want bleeding edge solutions, this is a production environment), I am quite happy with sparc solaris. just my 2 c.