Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the what's-the-story-morning-glory dept.
terrified gave us the hook-up to a recent ZD-Net column about Sun's recent moves in relation to Linux. The author's contention is that Sun is using Linux as a pawn in their holy war against Microsoft. A ell-argued piece.
I find it absolutely amazing that so few otherwise intelligent people completely fail to get the point of thin-client computing.
READ MY LIPS: THIS IS NOT FOR YOUR HOME PC!!!!
I am consulting at a company right now that has over 1000 UNIX boxes on people's desk. They also have about that many NT boxes. And they have a dozen people to keep them running probably making an average of $50K/yr.
What do I (and most of the other people with this equipment) use it for?
Netscape. Rlogin to a server where we do our development. Maybe Applix or StarOffice. And we don't have root access or access to anything but our NFS mounted home directories. Why not? We don't need it.
I don't need a full, independent workstation to do what I do here. I certainly don't need a $3000 Ultra 5. Thin clients are wonderful in this kind of environment.
The last place I worked (a large health-care organization) had literally hundreds, possibly thousands of users who used their PC's for two things: netscape to access the intranet (no Internet access for the masses) and Rumba to emulate an IBM 3270 terminal. We started to use Winterms because of the maintenance situation and they worked pretty well -- it looks to me like the Sun ray is an order of magnitude better than a winterm as well as being cheaper.
I see people whining about games on thin clients... HELLO!??!! How on earth is that relevant in the environment that these things are actually aimed at? It's not.
Finally, let me come back to the home PC. My wife uses a PC for three things: email, netscape, and quicken. That's it! No games, no office, no nothing. Why does she need a full PC running Linux or anything else?
The biggest problem with thin clients to date has been that they have not been cheaper, just easier to maintain. The Sun Ray looks to be changing that, and I wish them luck.
As for Star-Portal: Star Portal seems like a wonderful idea to me for occasional users of office applications (like me) -- Emacs is all the WP I need most of the time. When it's not, pull up one of the corporate licenses for star-portal. Don't forget that you don't have to install the software on every desktop as you do with conventional office apps like Star Office or MS-Office.
I guess the bottom line to this post is this: if you can only think of the home market and are reading slashdot, you don't need thin clients. But realize that most of the computers in the world are not aimed at the home market!!!
If this is true (and it makes quite a bit of sense) one has to wonder what rock the geniuses at Sun have been living under. Have they not noticed that NO ONE seems interested in network computing as a general purpose solution? While it may make inroads in certain markets, one of the single largest (if not the largest) markets for home PCs completely precludes this model of computing: games. Thin clients (in their current incarnations at least) can't run (nor store) the latest games. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but this is still a motivating factor in the hardware race, and anybody that's willing to pay in excess of $200 for a 3D accelerator is not going to want to deal with lag just to load their games.
If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that Sun seems to be the only ones interested in their vision of the future, and that the market has already demonstrated it's not viable. Maybe once they wake up, they'll start supporting Linux in spirit, not just as a horse and pony show.
I'm going to have to agree with the author of the article. I am very wary of Sun's motivations. Killing Wabi for Linux was perhaps the first indication that they don't want to further Linux for Linux' sake....just to help their own position. What will they do when Microsoft is gone, and it's a Sun vs. Linux world???
The article raises a lot of very good questions. Personally, I can see Sun going too far with badmouthing Linux because, in the long run, it will hurt Sun to be seen as the bad guy. Support for Linux serves Sun for the present and that's good for Linux now. Let's see what the future holds.
As for their plans to move applications to the net... That could never again be the main mode of operations in the computing world. That's exactly what we had before the Altair, Apple, IBM-PC... came along and confirmed the market for desktop computing. There are certain situations for which hosted software is a very good idea. Computers in public librarys and such come to mind. I don't want to go to the library to use a public terminal that some cyberpunk has rendered unuseable by filling the HD with their favorite games. I want to go to the library to use the research tools that were intended to be there.
Ultimately, Sun can go ahead with their plans to serve apps across the net. There is a relatively untapped market for that service. However, as I paraphrase an old NRA bumper sticker, I'll give up my locally installed apps when they pry my cold dead fingers from my keyboard.
D. Keith Higgs CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
-- My office has been taken over by iPod people.
why not wait and see if it works
by
vyesue
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· Score: 3
I'm not sure why anyone even considers any of this a big deal. if Sun wants to try and bring us into a server-centric future, if they think that they can deliver more utility and ease-of-use by selling users thinclients and server-based software on a dependable network, let them.
people keep yelling nonsensically that the mainframe paradigm has already been proven wrong and useless; I would suggest that maybe they might want to compare the performance of a mainframe in 1975 on the other end of a hacked together network connected to a vt100 to that of a Sun e450 connected to your full color thin client (with smartcard slot for authentication) via adsl or cable modem or soemthing of that nature.
I say ignore Sun until they produce something; then judge it on its merits, not the MAINFRAMES R DED hype youve been hearing for years.
OpenSource Bandwagon of Pick Pockets and Thieves
by
ggoebel
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· Score: 3
Maybe the bandwagon has a few too many pick-pockets and thieves on board. I'm tired of hearing companies say "Open Source". I'm not listening. I wait a couple weeks and see how many people complain about the latest public embrace of "Open Source" by yet another big name company.
Honestly, once you expand beyond the bounds of GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses... I don't really know whether it is open source or not. The Open Source Initiative has a pretty resonable definition of "Open Source". But what does it matter if everyone under the sun can chime in with the magic words "Open Source"... If there isn't a way to tell if they really are || aren't.
It'd be nice if "OSI Certified" takes off. Then someone could make a blacklist for everyone who claims to be Open Source, but isn't. Until someone does that... I'll remain dazed and confused by the plethora of licenses being used.
In the end, I don't really care what the hell you call the license. I just want to know whether it is open source or not. -And any license that is OSI compliant is going to be fairly decent at capturing the spirit of what exactly open source means (to me).
-- Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
Sun really should support JDK on Linux ...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3
... as much as it does for Solaris and Windows!
I mean, c'mon! The people who tend to run Linux as their desktop OS (CS students, hackers, etc ) are probably the best people Sun could possibly want to adopt the Java language.
Sun needs to make Linux the third officially supported OS along with Solaris and Windows. Blackdown.org can't just do it all by themselves.
Know them by their acts - Java, SCSL
by
Nelson+Minar
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· Score: 3
I'm not one to be terribly religious about this kind of corporate positioning. If you look at Sun's recent actions, it's clear that as a corporation they are not terribly friendly to Linux or open source.
First, look at the sad state of Java ports. Sun *still* does not support Java on Linux. They have helped out the Blackdown team some, thank you for that, but it's a half-hearted effort on Sun's side. My reading is that Sun is internally conflicted about whether Linux is an ally or threat and can't decide whether to work with Linux or not.
Second, look at the SCSL, a bizarre amalgation of open-source-like licensing and proprietary restrictions. My impression is that Sun was trying to ride some of the open source wave and satisfy their "partners" who were getting increasingly agitated by Sun's lock on Java, while still retaining traditional controls over the technology. I don't think they're motivated by any attempt at actually improving the world through source releases.
Sun's a big company. They're caught in a major change in their market, where expensive workstations have been supplanted by $1200 Linux boxes running on Intel hardware. It should be no surprise that they aren't a friend to Linux, they're trying to stay on top of the heap.
The place where Sun differs from Microsoft is that, in general, Sun technology is pretty good. Solaris is a good Unix. Java is a fantastic development platform. Sun does create quality in their technology, and that should be applauded.
Sun didn't kill WABI for Linux. WABI as a product from Sun was killed quite some time ago. It isn't Sun's fault that some other companies licensed it and continued to sell it...until March. IIRC, Sun dropped WABI about two+ years ago.
Quite simply, WABI no longer made any sense. It only support Win16 apps, and even then the apps need to be certified to run under WABI.
There are much better solutions available that WABI. SoftWindows is rather nice. Even better are the Citrix type products in which a group shares a single NT box. Any app can then run and run quite well. At a previous employer, we purchased WinCenter on the spot while it was still a beta. That was many years ago.
To think that WABI was cancelled because of or for Linux shows how lame the analysis in this article really is.
Finally, Sun bought StarOffice to help sell SunRays. Again, this has nothng to do with Linux. People need to understand that some companies, banks for example, having 10,000 PC's...doing nothing but running a few small apps that used to run on 3270 terminals. The Sun Ray is a perfect solution for this. Think of a bank teller...or a cashier at a point of sale. This is a HUGE market. Only a fool would want to install a PC (Windows, Linux or Solaris) to do something so simple....which is why people are feeling as though Bill Gates and Microsoft has been playing people for a fool.
I've also been watching Sun with a doubtful eye, and it seems many share my fears. I've been thinking on why Sun bothers me, and it's because they are pretending to not understand the fundamental tradeoff involved with open source.
You can either control a product, in which case you hire all the labor you need for it, or else you can turn it loose and let open source developers take it from there. Sun wants it *both* ways, and that isn't going to work.
It's not that anyone thinks all their patches should be accepted without question, reasonable people know that peer review and subsequent rejection is often for the good of the software. But the rejection is only acceptable when it's a pure meritocracy. Developers are afraid of the SCSL because Sun's political and corporate aims are likely to provide reasons to reject patches and entire directions for development.
There is always a narrowing of an open source project at the top, some kernel of trusted people who make the tough decisions and control the future of the program. This doesn't result in authoritarian control only because the option to fork is always present. If nearly half of a project's developers disagree with the folks at top, the pressure to accept some control from below becomes intense due to the threat of forking. Sun's SCSL provides no such mechanism of checks over Sun's leadership. They could be terribly wrong, and there's not one thing you could do about it. No one wants to work on a project *for free* when they feel they have little to no control over it.
I think Sun understands this perfectly well, but simply is not willing to lose control over any software they feel has importance to them. They *should* give up trying to sound like they are sorta climbing on the Linux bandwagon, they're not. This doesn't make them an enemy, just another proprietary vendor that happens to sell Unix-like boxen. For now, they are very useful to Linux. We've got the cyberdemon(MS) and spiderdemon(Sun) fighting, so we should quietly go about our business and reassess matters after the fight is over. It's likely the competition will look more fair than now afterwards.
Network Computing Is The Answer
by
fishlet
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· Score: 3
I think Sun's fundamental vision of network computing is the right way of doing things. People seem to get all up in arms when mentioning network computing.. they think it's like communism or something. I like to remind such folks that a NT workstation with an administrative password is just as restrictive. So... I wish these people would just stop whining. Also, contrary to popular belief... a network computer can be just as customizable as a workstation if the software is well designed. Provided I could afford a fast enough connection to the internet... I'd just assume never have to install another program locally again. As far as Sun's taking shots at Microsoft... good for them. M$ is a enemy of Unix, in any way , shape and form. I think that for anyone that stands up for Unix (whatever form)... it's a GoodThing TM.
Re: game consoles are the future
by
poopie
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· Score: 3
Hey, fewer and fewer people are going to be willing to spend $2000 for a computer, $150 for a joystick, $200 for a new graphics card, $150 for decent speakers *JUST* to *PLAY*GAMES*.
People will be more likely to tolerate a lag to load a game when they have access to newer games on cheaper hardware. (witness how willingly linux users download ISO images over PPP!)
As to computers for gaming machines, I got tired of having to upgrade my OS/drivers/hardware every few months just to play a game.
... and I only had *one* joystick, so 2 player games were difficult.
You can get a playstation or N64 for $99, and there are tons of games that just work, don't need to be installed, configured, uninstalled, reinstalled, upgraded, etc.
I switched. I'll never waste time futzing around on my computer for games again.
Face it, *CONSUMERS* want SIMPLE, CHEAP, DISPOSABLE APPLIANCES. Slashdot users aren't representative of the general populace that will decide the success
The article is like many others. I remember reading something about how Oracle was also porting their stuff over just to make sure that NT would not be the only OS that would have a Database on the PC servers! Granted, StarOffice is really not something that you would associate SUN MicroSystems with, its more of a M$ style package! But then you need to remember that even Silicon Graphics became SGI. It may just be that Sun now realizes that specializing in hardware and OS may not be the stratergy for the future (I kow Sun does a lot more). Besides I dont think that even Sun would be bold enough to "drop StarOffice" too fast. Granted its not a cash cow but hell they are giving themselves some breathing room. Last i checked Microsoft still could not compete with Solaris on *REAL* machines like the EU10K. So if they do have to compete with M$, they better get to that correct playing field!!! Home and Business users, and thats where StarOffice will come in, even if they get their Java clients figured out, more is always merrier!
Some of the media hype about M$ is a bit overdone, hell if you were as big as M$ is you would almost need to have that much competition. Its just that emotions run a lot higher when BillGates is the person on the other side. What LINUX needs now is apps. to get it accepted! If this does happen, there is NO WAY THAT Sun will pull out... Java Client or NOT!.
-- Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
Re:Could Sun be this dumb? (Ans: no)
by
AJWM
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· Score: 5
Uh, Sun isn't interested in home PCs, so what makes sense on those is irrelevant to Sun. Sun sells to businesses, and there the model does make sense. (Not always, but enough of a market that Microsoft is nervous about it.) And that market is much bigger than the home PC market.
(In the future, perhaps, as broadband access to the net (cable, DSL, etc) increases, we may see more of an interest by Sun in the home market -- likely a lot of current non-PC owners would be interested in something like this that'll give them their email, their network-served office apps, and yes their networked games. WebTV just doesn't cut it. Remember that most potential home users have neither the inclination nor skill to manage a PC, they'd rather pay somebody else to do it - and if they can do that via a network, so much the better (no need to bring the PC down to CompUSA or wherever to have the latest software loaded up on it)).
Don't make the mistake of judging the mass market by your personal preferences. After all, look at the success of Microsoft and AOL.
*) Just because you found someone several years ago, who thinks that Sun would be worse than MS, doesn't mean it's true. Even if Sun gained the same position MS is in, I doubt they'd act the same - MS has been acting like they are now for pretty much their entire history. For example, I've never heard of Sun trying to co-opt other people's standards, but MS does it all the time. Sun does good backwards compatability on all it's products - compile something for Solaris 2.5, and it'll almost certainly work fine on Solaris 2.7, or 2.8 when it comes out. MS mostly uses the cheapest programmers it can get, unlike Sun - and Solaris is far far more stable than any MS product. Sun's standard policy for anything that comes with Solaris is that they will continue to support for 5 years after they stop selling it - they're still supporting Solaris 2.3, unlike MS which tends to drop support for older versions the minute something newer is available. If you've followed the details of the DoJ vs MS trial in detail, like I have, you'll get a pretty clear idea of what lengths MS will go to force people to do what they want. The biggest reason my MS execs are so agressive is because of the share options - by working themselves to the bone to get raises and by improving MS's outlook, they can make loads of money. While Sun do offer share options, they mostly offer a good salary and a good working environment. btw, some Sun managers pay is tied to the reliability of Sun hardware/software solutions.
*) Sun aren't stopping development for StarOffice - they are keeping all 200 developers. If they wanted to kill off StarOffice at a later date, then why the heck would they release the source code and keep the developers?
*) Unless MS just dies very quickly, Sun would have very little to gain by suddenly dropping StarOffice - that would be a gift to MS. The 'StarPortal' thing with the Java client needs a server - so it'll be very hard to make a home user to switch. Corportations would be a bit different, but they're hardly likely to drop their general purpose PCs for a pure Sun solution just because Sun drop StarOffice. The StarPortal thing is more new markets, not current ones.
*) The SunRay 1 is a very focus solution, aimed at things like call centers, or where you would currently have terminals. It is absolutely not in any way at all a general solution or intended to be a replacement for all PCs. (just the ones that are doing simple basic things) Sun currently only supply Java for Solaris and Windows - if they drop StarOffice for the Java-only version (which might well require Java 1.3 which has just gone into beta), that helps MS, unless Sun massively increase the support they directly provide for Java on other OSs.
*) Wabi itself was dropped by Sun 2 years ago. It seems Caldera were doing 'Wabi for Linux' and it was them that dropped it in March this year. (I'm not sure of some of the details)
*) Sun is a hardware company - 85% of their revenue comes from hardware, and they have very good, and high end server solutions. It's hardly surprising that they'll play to their strengths. It would also be unreasonable to expect Sun to give away all their technology and software to Linux, as they only make a profit on their software stuff because it sells more hardware.
*) I've seen lots of people say that Sun is hurting because of Linux. Actually it's the other way around - Linux is growing and helping the general unix market, which helps Sun. Finantially, Sun is doing just as well as they've always been doing (20-25% growth per year, 2nd only to Dell for a large computer manufacturer) and I haven't seen any indications to suggest that they are being hurt by Linux. Scott McNealy actually said recently that he doesn't want Sun to grow more than 25% per year - can't hire good people fast enough to grow faster reliable. Besides, though Sun is somewhat vulerable in terms of hardware sales for boxes for software development, or web servers and the like, there is little
*) As for the liscense - I'm pretty damn sure it prevents you from say giving a copy of the binary to a friend, or using one download to install it on a load of machines in an office. Also, (though it's not officially confirmed yet I think), AOL will be distrubuting StarOffice on their standard CD-ROM, and Compaq and other PC manufacturers will be pre-installing it on some of their computers.
Well, that's enough for now...
Sun, Linux, and the JFK assassination
by
Brandon+Hume
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· Score: 3
Its very interesting reading the comments posted here. Most of them, overall, seem to be caught up in the same flow as the original article. Some seem intelligently placed. Some are just plain stupid.
1) "Sun just wants Linux to hurt Microsoft."
Well, there's only one thing that can be said to this... DUH! Does anyone really think that the Oracle, IBM, SGI, and anybody else are operating on any other motivation? Sun wants to sell Solaris. IBM wants to sell AIX.
Why is one more evil than another?
Was the UltraPenguin program faked? Sun got up, and declared Linux worthy. Was that a BAD thing to do? A lot of people were pleased when Sun did that, saying they were simply wise to do so... its interesting how fast people turn their coats.
Honestly... how many people run Linux without any concept of just what kind of OS is beneath their fingers and what it can do, but run it just because its not Microsoft? A fair number I think, because I run into these people every day.
2) "Sun will drop Linux as soon as it starts to threaten Slowlaris".
First off... Find something newer than "Slowlaris", its getting worn out.
Sun has been marketing Solaris x86 for a while now. They haven't turned against Linux over that yet. Secondly, Sun ships a copy of Solaris free with every Sun workstation. So, if a person gets their sparc and blows off Solaris, why should Sun care? They've done their duty.
Thirdly, I know this may shock some people, but some people LIKE Solaris, and they're not necessarily idiots for doing so. I like its filesystem layout. I like its driver model. I like how I don't need kernel headers to compile applications. I like its threading model, and its great SMP. I compared these to Linux (and other Unixes) equivalents, and I made a CHOICE. And generally I find that the people who like and use Solaris tend to KEEP liking and using Solaris. I don't think Linux is going to erase Solaris from existence any time soon. Would you WANT it to? Isn't that what competition is about, even for free Unixes?
3) "Sun is trying to keep Linux down by not porting Java".
This is amazingly stupid. Sun IS helping port Java. The people complaining about it not being out yet seem to have no concept of just how complex and involved such a project IS. Java 1.2 exists from Blackdown, and they appear to be working on getting it passing the Java Compatibility Tests which Sun insists on. (And before someone starting griping about THAT, let me say that that's called being "fair". Sun stomped on MS for violating those tests, they can't very well turn around and let Linux get away without them, otherwise the conspiracy theorists will REALLY crawl out of the woodwork.)
So, if Java for Linux isn't moving fast enough for you, why not volunteer to help out with the project?
The rest of the comments, along with the article itself, appear to be just more FUD. Sun killed Wabi, the author is annoyed, and tries to spin off an anti-Linux conspiracy to make the zealots hurt Sun back. I don't think so. Linux is here to stay, Solaris isn't going to die anytime soon, Sun's actions have NOT been inconsistent, and the world continues to spin. -- Brandon Hume hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
Firstly, the PC isn't much of games station itself any more. The PCs CPUs are so unfitting for modern 3D games that more and more of the load is being moved off the processor and onto the accelerator cards every day. Witness the new Nvidia card with the funny name, which does every part of the graphics processing from geometry setup and on. Gamers also invest in dedicated games soundcards, also equiped with their own chips for sound processing. Gamers regularly keep their games on a seperate harddrive, and besides OS I can't remember a single reason to have a CD-rom drive in my machine.
The most important aspect the games usage of my pc shares with the pc usage is the interface, and lets face it, besides the mouse and quake, the pc interface is far from ideal for gaming.
On the flip side however, combining one of Sun's dumb clients like the Ray with a next generation games console like the Playstation 2 seems like a very realistic idea. The only thing they are really missing is a good Internet connection (I can't imagine remote running applications over a modem like the dreamcast), and support for a monitor besides the TV.
I would say that this is a MORE natural marriage then that of the PC and the games station, which is quickly converging into two machines in one box.
(I have always hated consoles and their stupid single player games, btw. This is not console vs pc gaming post.)
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it absolutely amazing that so few otherwise intelligent people completely fail to get the point of thin-client computing.
READ MY LIPS: THIS IS NOT FOR YOUR HOME PC!!!!
I am consulting at a company right now that has over 1000 UNIX boxes on people's desk. They also have about that many NT boxes. And they have a dozen people to keep them running probably making an average of $50K/yr.
What do I (and most of the other people with this equipment) use it for?
Netscape. Rlogin to a server where we do our development. Maybe Applix or StarOffice. And we don't have root access or access to anything but our NFS mounted home directories. Why not? We don't need it.
I don't need a full, independent workstation to do what I do here. I certainly don't need a $3000 Ultra 5. Thin clients are wonderful in this kind of environment.
The last place I worked (a large health-care organization) had literally hundreds, possibly thousands of users who used their PC's for two things: netscape to access the intranet (no Internet access for the masses) and Rumba to emulate an IBM 3270 terminal. We started to use Winterms because of the maintenance situation and they worked pretty well -- it looks to me like the Sun ray is an order of magnitude better than a winterm as well as being cheaper.
I see people whining about games on thin clients... HELLO!??!! How on earth is that relevant in the environment that these things are actually aimed at? It's not.
Finally, let me come back to the home PC. My wife uses a PC for three things: email, netscape, and quicken. That's it! No games, no office, no nothing. Why does she need a full PC running Linux or anything else?
The biggest problem with thin clients to date has been that they have not been cheaper, just easier to maintain. The Sun Ray looks to be changing that, and I wish them luck.
As for Star-Portal: Star Portal seems like a wonderful idea to me for occasional users of office applications (like me) -- Emacs is all the WP I need most of the time. When it's not, pull up one of the corporate licenses for star-portal. Don't forget that you don't have to install the software on every desktop as you do with conventional office apps like Star Office or MS-Office.
I guess the bottom line to this post is this: if you can only think of the home market and are reading slashdot, you don't need thin clients. But realize that most of the computers in the world are not aimed at the home market!!!
-- Slashdot sucks.
If this is true (and it makes quite a bit of sense) one has to wonder what rock the geniuses at Sun have been living under. Have they not noticed that NO ONE seems interested in network computing as a general purpose solution? While it may make inroads in certain markets, one of the single largest (if not the largest) markets for home PCs completely precludes this model of computing: games. Thin clients (in their current incarnations at least) can't run (nor store) the latest games. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but this is still a motivating factor in the hardware race, and anybody that's willing to pay in excess of $200 for a 3D accelerator is not going to want to deal with lag just to load their games.
If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that Sun seems to be the only ones interested in their vision of the future, and that the market has already demonstrated it's not viable. Maybe once they wake up, they'll start supporting Linux in spirit, not just as a horse and pony show.
-Brian
I'm going to have to agree with the author of the article. I am very wary of Sun's motivations. Killing Wabi for Linux was perhaps the first indication that they don't want to further Linux for Linux' sake....just to help their own position. What will they do when Microsoft is gone, and it's a Sun vs. Linux world???
Werd.
As for their plans to move applications to the net... That could never again be the main mode of operations in the computing world. That's exactly what we had before the Altair, Apple, IBM-PC... came along and confirmed the market for desktop computing. There are certain situations for which hosted software is a very good idea. Computers in public librarys and such come to mind. I don't want to go to the library to use a public terminal that some cyberpunk has rendered unuseable by filling the HD with their favorite games. I want to go to the library to use the research tools that were intended to be there.
Ultimately, Sun can go ahead with their plans to serve apps across the net. There is a relatively untapped market for that service. However, as I paraphrase an old NRA bumper sticker, I'll give up my locally installed apps when they pry my cold dead fingers from my keyboard.
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
I'm not sure why anyone even considers any of this a big deal. if Sun wants to try and bring us into a server-centric future, if they think that they can deliver more utility and ease-of-use by selling users thinclients and server-based software on a dependable network, let them.
people keep yelling nonsensically that the mainframe paradigm has already been proven wrong and useless; I would suggest that maybe they might want to compare the performance of a mainframe in 1975 on the other end of a hacked together network connected to a vt100 to that of a Sun e450 connected to your full color thin client (with smartcard slot for authentication) via adsl or cable modem or soemthing of that nature.
I say ignore Sun until they produce something; then judge it on its merits, not the MAINFRAMES R DED hype youve been hearing for years.
Maybe the bandwagon has a few too many pick-pockets and thieves on board. I'm tired of hearing companies say "Open Source". I'm not listening. I wait a couple weeks and see how many people complain about the latest public embrace of "Open Source" by yet another big name company.
Honestly, once you expand beyond the bounds of GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses... I don't really know whether it is open source or not. The Open Source Initiative has a pretty resonable definition of "Open Source". But what does it matter if everyone under the sun can chime in with the magic words "Open Source"... If there isn't a way to tell if they really are || aren't.
It'd be nice if "OSI Certified" takes off. Then someone could make a blacklist for everyone who claims to be Open Source, but isn't. Until someone does that... I'll remain dazed and confused by the plethora of licenses being used.
In the end, I don't really care what the hell you call the license. I just want to know whether it is open source or not. -And any license that is OSI compliant is going to be fairly decent at capturing the spirit of what exactly open source means (to me).
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
... as much as it does for Solaris and Windows!
I mean, c'mon! The people who tend to run Linux as their desktop OS (CS students, hackers, etc ) are probably the best people Sun could possibly want to adopt the Java language.
Sun needs to make Linux the third officially supported OS along with Solaris and Windows. Blackdown.org can't just do it all by themselves.
I'm not one to be terribly religious about this kind of corporate positioning. If you look at Sun's recent actions, it's clear that as a corporation they are not terribly friendly to Linux or open source.
First, look at the sad state of Java ports. Sun *still* does not support Java on Linux. They have helped out the Blackdown team some, thank you for that, but it's a half-hearted effort on Sun's side. My reading is that Sun is internally conflicted about whether Linux is an ally or threat and can't decide whether to work with Linux or not.
Second, look at the SCSL, a bizarre amalgation of open-source-like licensing and proprietary restrictions. My impression is that Sun was trying to ride some of the open source wave and satisfy their "partners" who were getting increasingly agitated by Sun's lock on Java, while still retaining traditional controls over the technology. I don't think they're motivated by any attempt at actually improving the world through source releases.
Sun's a big company. They're caught in a major change in their market, where expensive workstations have been supplanted by $1200 Linux boxes running on Intel hardware. It should be no surprise that they aren't a friend to Linux, they're trying to stay on top of the heap.
The place where Sun differs from Microsoft is that, in general, Sun technology is pretty good. Solaris is a good Unix. Java is a fantastic development platform. Sun does create quality in their technology, and that should be applauded.
Sun didn't kill WABI for Linux. WABI as a product from Sun was killed quite some time ago. It isn't Sun's fault that some other companies licensed it and continued to sell it...until March. IIRC, Sun dropped WABI about two+ years ago.
Quite simply, WABI no longer made any sense. It only support Win16 apps, and even then the apps need to be certified to run under WABI.
There are much better solutions available that WABI. SoftWindows is rather nice. Even better are the Citrix type products in which a group shares a single NT box. Any app can then run and run quite well. At a previous employer, we purchased WinCenter on the spot while it was still a beta. That was many years ago.
To think that WABI was cancelled because of or for Linux shows how lame the analysis in this article really is.
Finally, Sun bought StarOffice to help sell SunRays. Again, this has nothng to do with Linux. People need to understand that some companies, banks for example, having 10,000 PC's...doing nothing but running a few small apps that used to run on 3270 terminals. The Sun Ray is a perfect solution for this. Think of a bank teller...or a cashier at a point of sale. This is a HUGE market. Only a fool would want to install a PC (Windows, Linux or Solaris) to do something so simple....which is why people are feeling as though Bill Gates and Microsoft has been playing people for a fool.
slashdot.com All the news that isn't.
I've also been watching Sun with a doubtful eye, and it seems many share my fears. I've been thinking on why Sun bothers me, and it's because they are pretending to not understand the fundamental tradeoff involved with open source.
You can either control a product, in which case you hire all the labor you need for it, or else you can turn it loose and let open source developers take it from there. Sun wants it *both* ways, and that isn't going to work.
It's not that anyone thinks all their patches should be accepted without question, reasonable people know that peer review and subsequent rejection is often for the good of the software. But the rejection is only acceptable when it's a pure meritocracy. Developers are afraid of the SCSL because Sun's political and corporate aims are likely to provide reasons to reject patches and entire directions for development.
There is always a narrowing of an open source project at the top, some kernel of trusted people who make the tough decisions and control the future of the program. This doesn't result in authoritarian control only because the option to fork is always present. If nearly half of a project's developers disagree with the folks at top, the pressure to accept some control from below becomes intense due to the threat of forking. Sun's SCSL provides no such mechanism of checks over Sun's leadership. They could be terribly wrong, and there's not one thing you could do about it. No one wants to work on a project *for free* when they feel they have little to no control over it.
I think Sun understands this perfectly well, but simply is not willing to lose control over any software they feel has importance to them. They *should* give up trying to sound like they are sorta climbing on the Linux bandwagon, they're not. This doesn't make them an enemy, just another proprietary vendor that happens to sell Unix-like boxen. For now, they are very useful to Linux. We've got the cyberdemon(MS) and spiderdemon(Sun) fighting, so we should quietly go about our business and reassess matters after the fight is over. It's likely the competition will look more fair than now afterwards.
I think Sun's fundamental vision of network computing is the right way of doing things. People seem to get all up in arms when mentioning network computing.. they think it's like communism or something. I like to remind such folks that a NT workstation with an administrative password is just as restrictive. So... I wish these people would just stop whining. Also, contrary to popular belief... a network computer can be just as customizable as a workstation if the software is well designed. Provided I could afford a fast enough connection to the internet... I'd just assume never have to install another program locally again. As far as Sun's taking shots at Microsoft... good for them. M$ is a enemy of Unix, in any way , shape and form. I think that for anyone that stands up for Unix (whatever form)... it's a GoodThing TM.
Blender And Linux Fan
Hey, fewer and fewer people are going to be willing to spend $2000 for a computer, $150 for a joystick, $200 for a new graphics card, $150 for decent speakers *JUST* to *PLAY*GAMES*.
People will be more likely to tolerate a lag to load a game when they have access to newer games on cheaper hardware. (witness how willingly linux users download ISO images over PPP!)
As to computers for gaming machines, I got tired of having to upgrade my OS/drivers/hardware every few months just to play a game.
... and I only had *one* joystick, so 2 player games were difficult.
You can get a playstation or N64 for $99, and there are tons of games that just work, don't need to be installed, configured, uninstalled, reinstalled, upgraded, etc.
I switched. I'll never waste time futzing around on my computer for games again.
Face it, *CONSUMERS* want SIMPLE, CHEAP, DISPOSABLE APPLIANCES. Slashdot users aren't representative of the general populace that will decide the success
The article is like many others. I remember reading something about how Oracle was also porting their stuff over just to make sure that NT would not be the only OS that would have a Database on the PC servers!
Granted, StarOffice is really not something that you would associate SUN MicroSystems with, its more of a M$ style package! But then you need to remember that even Silicon Graphics became SGI.
It may just be that Sun now realizes that specializing in hardware and OS may not be the stratergy for the future (I kow Sun does a lot more). Besides I dont think that even Sun would be bold enough to "drop StarOffice" too fast. Granted its not a cash cow but hell they are giving themselves some breathing room.
Last i checked Microsoft still could not compete with Solaris on *REAL* machines like the EU10K. So if they do have to compete with M$, they better get to that correct playing field!!! Home and Business users, and thats where StarOffice will come in, even if they get their Java clients figured out, more is always merrier!
Some of the media hype about M$ is a bit overdone, hell if you were as big as M$ is you would almost need to have that much competition. Its just that emotions run a lot higher when BillGates is the person on the other side.
What LINUX needs now is apps. to get it accepted! If this does happen, there is NO WAY THAT Sun will pull out... Java Client or NOT!.
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
Uh, Sun isn't interested in home PCs, so what makes sense on those is irrelevant to Sun. Sun sells to businesses, and there the model does make sense. (Not always, but enough of a market that Microsoft is nervous about it.)
And that market is much bigger than the home PC market.
(In the future, perhaps, as broadband access to the net (cable, DSL, etc) increases, we may see more of an interest by Sun in the home market -- likely a lot of current non-PC owners would be interested in something like this that'll give them their email, their network-served office apps, and yes their networked games. WebTV just doesn't cut it. Remember that most potential home users have neither the inclination nor skill to manage a PC, they'd rather pay somebody else to do it - and if they can do that via a network, so much the better (no need to bring the PC down to CompUSA or wherever to have the latest software loaded up on it)).
Don't make the mistake of judging the mass market by your personal preferences. After all, look at the success of Microsoft and AOL.
-- Alastair
*) Sun aren't stopping development for StarOffice - they are keeping all 200 developers. If they wanted to kill off StarOffice at a later date, then why the heck would they release the source code and keep the developers?
*) Unless MS just dies very quickly, Sun would have very little to gain by suddenly dropping StarOffice - that would be a gift to MS. The 'StarPortal' thing with the Java client needs a server - so it'll be very hard to make a home user to switch. Corportations would be a bit different, but they're hardly likely to drop their general purpose PCs for a pure Sun solution just because Sun drop StarOffice. The StarPortal thing is more new markets, not current ones.
*) The SunRay 1 is a very focus solution, aimed at things like call centers, or where you would currently have terminals. It is absolutely not in any way at all a general solution or intended to be a replacement for all PCs. (just the ones that are doing simple basic things) Sun currently only supply Java for Solaris and Windows - if they drop StarOffice for the Java-only version (which might well require Java 1.3 which has just gone into beta), that helps MS, unless Sun massively increase the support they directly provide for Java on other OSs.
*) Wabi itself was dropped by Sun 2 years ago. It seems Caldera were doing 'Wabi for Linux' and it was them that dropped it in March this year. (I'm not sure of some of the details)
*) Sun is a hardware company - 85% of their revenue comes from hardware, and they have very good, and high end server solutions. It's hardly surprising that they'll play to their strengths. It would also be unreasonable to expect Sun to give away all their technology and software to Linux, as they only make a profit on their software stuff because it sells more hardware.
*) I've seen lots of people say that Sun is hurting because of Linux. Actually it's the other way around - Linux is growing and helping the general unix market, which helps Sun. Finantially, Sun is doing just as well as they've always been doing (20-25% growth per year, 2nd only to Dell for a large computer manufacturer) and I haven't seen any indications to suggest that they are being hurt by Linux. Scott McNealy actually said recently that he doesn't want Sun to grow more than 25% per year - can't hire good people fast enough to grow faster reliable. Besides, though Sun is somewhat vulerable in terms of hardware sales for boxes for software development, or web servers and the like, there is little
*) As for the liscense - I'm pretty damn sure it prevents you from say giving a copy of the binary to a friend, or using one download to install it on a load of machines in an office. Also, (though it's not officially confirmed yet I think), AOL will be distrubuting StarOffice on their standard CD-ROM, and Compaq and other PC manufacturers will be pre-installing it on some of their computers.
Well, that's enough for now...
Its very interesting reading the comments posted here. Most of them, overall, seem to be caught up in the same flow as the original article. Some seem intelligently placed. Some are just plain stupid.
1) "Sun just wants Linux to hurt Microsoft."
Well, there's only one thing that can be said to this... DUH! Does anyone really think that the Oracle, IBM, SGI, and anybody else are operating on any other motivation? Sun wants to sell Solaris. IBM wants to sell AIX.
Why is one more evil than another?
Was the UltraPenguin program faked? Sun got up, and declared Linux worthy. Was that a BAD thing to do? A lot of people were pleased when Sun did that, saying they were simply wise to do so... its interesting how fast people turn their coats.
Honestly... how many people run Linux without any concept of just what kind of OS is beneath their fingers and what it can do, but run it just because its not Microsoft? A fair number I think, because I run into these people every day.
2) "Sun will drop Linux as soon as it starts to threaten Slowlaris".
First off... Find something newer than "Slowlaris", its getting worn out.
Sun has been marketing Solaris x86 for a while now. They haven't turned against Linux over that yet. Secondly, Sun ships a copy of Solaris free with every Sun workstation. So, if a person gets their sparc and blows off Solaris, why should Sun care? They've done their duty.
Thirdly, I know this may shock some people, but some people LIKE Solaris, and they're not necessarily idiots for doing so. I like its filesystem layout. I like its driver model. I like how I don't need kernel headers to compile applications. I like its threading model, and its great SMP. I compared these to Linux (and other Unixes) equivalents, and I made a CHOICE. And generally I find that the people who like and use Solaris tend to KEEP liking and using Solaris.
I don't think Linux is going to erase Solaris from existence any time soon. Would you WANT it to? Isn't that what competition is about, even for free Unixes?
3) "Sun is trying to keep Linux down by not porting Java".
This is amazingly stupid. Sun IS helping port Java. The people complaining about it not being out yet seem to have no concept of just how complex and involved such a project IS. Java 1.2 exists from Blackdown, and they appear to be working on getting it passing the Java Compatibility Tests which Sun insists on. (And before someone starting griping about THAT, let me say that that's called being "fair". Sun stomped on MS for violating those tests, they can't very well turn around and let Linux get away without them, otherwise the conspiracy theorists will REALLY crawl out of the woodwork.)
So, if Java for Linux isn't moving fast enough for you, why not volunteer to help out with the project?
The rest of the comments, along with the article itself, appear to be just more FUD. Sun killed Wabi, the author is annoyed, and tries to spin off an anti-Linux conspiracy to make the zealots hurt Sun back. I don't think so. Linux is here to stay, Solaris isn't going to die anytime soon, Sun's actions have NOT been inconsistent, and the world continues to spin.
--
Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/
Firstly, the PC isn't much of games station itself any more. The PCs CPUs are so unfitting for modern 3D games that more and more of the load is being moved off the processor and onto the accelerator cards every day. Witness the new Nvidia card with the funny name, which does every part of the graphics processing from geometry setup and on. Gamers also invest in dedicated games soundcards, also equiped with their own chips for sound processing. Gamers regularly keep their games on a seperate harddrive, and besides OS I can't remember a single reason to have a CD-rom drive in my machine.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
The most important aspect the games usage of my pc shares with the pc usage is the interface, and lets face it, besides the mouse and quake, the pc interface is far from ideal for gaming.
On the flip side however, combining one of Sun's dumb clients like the Ray with a next generation games console like the Playstation 2 seems like a very realistic idea. The only thing they are really missing is a good Internet connection (I can't imagine remote running applications over a modem like the dreamcast), and support for a monitor besides the TV.
I would say that this is a MORE natural marriage then that of the PC and the games station, which is quickly converging into two machines in one box.
(I have always hated consoles and their stupid single player games, btw. This is not console vs pc gaming post.)
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